


Slow Emotion Replay

by DiazTuna



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A little angst, F/F, Stranger Things AU, Swan Queen Supernova 2019 (Once Upon a Time), kind of but not really, x-files au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-05 07:29:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20485133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiazTuna/pseuds/DiazTuna
Summary: 1993. Henry Mills goes missing.  His mother, Regina Mills, and the new Chief of Police, Emma Swan must solve the mysteries of their past to bring him home.A Stranger Things and X-Files-ish AU.





	1. 1980

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeesometime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesometime/gifts).

> I couldn't have done this without Sweets reading through my rants and typos.
> 
> And EVIE. WE DID IT. WE FINALLY DID IT.!!! SHOOT YOUR SHOT.
> 
> [Go check out Evie's AMAZING COVER ART FOR THIS FIC. DO IT NOW!!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20415013)

_ Storybrooke, Maine. October 25, 1980. _

“Fuck me.” Zelena mutters as she feels the drizzle that will grow thicker before she reaches home. 

It’s past curfew on a Saturday but it’s not like mother minds it. If it were Regina, she would yell and drill her every night for a week about her schoolwork. Violin technique, anything. Anything to ensure that her golden child remained on track to success. Not Zelena. She can and has returned with liquor on her breath. Smoke in her black hair but nothing elicits the same reaction. Stellar grades and recitals never earned her attention. When Zelena hits the note perfectly mother focuses only on how Regina fails. 

Whatever. A joint at Oz’s place did little more than make her tongue tied and hungry. The back of her head goes numb as rain hits her. She _ hates _ this shortcut. It’s all mud and twigs that get on her shoes even if she bikes through it. The moonlight is dim coming through the foliage and she curses that Oz lives in the backwoods of shitsville. Zelena doesn’t even like him but she isn’t sure she likes anyone. Not Linna and her gang of sanctimonious idiots even if she wishes they liked her. 

“Not like little Miss Practically Imperfect in Every Way.” She mutters thinking of her sister. Sneaking out her window to skate with the Swan girl. Resents that Regina has someone she would risk mother’s wrath for. Niña imbecil, has it all and endangers it all for what, exactly?

A twig snaps behind her. Normally she wouldn’t think much of it. But with her head swimming and raindrops growing thicker on her skin, Zelena’s breath quickens. Her feet almost slip from the pedals as she tries to tell herself it’s just deer. Deer and pot hitting her twenty minutes too late. The crushing of leaves and the steps that follow her are just a trick of her mind. Fuck, fuck. Fuck. She is going to getting get mauled by a stupid mountain lion or something. They won’t even find her body. Mud turns into pavement and she can breathe easier.

Just Oz’s shitty batch of weed. That’s all it is. Zelena laughs in relief and slows down her pace. She’ll be home before she knows it. Shower and get under the covers. The streetlight above her flickers off but she won’t let herself panic again. Not even if she feels a chill at the back of her neck, not if a streetlight a block away dies too. 

“All in my head, all in my head.” Her grip on her handles tightens along with her chest. “I’m going to fucking kill Oz.” 

The street goes completely dark and the shock makes her fall from her bike. Zelena can feel the burn of a long scrape on her knee and a bent ankle but she runs anyway. Doesn’t matter if it’s all in her head. Even a gust of wind that almost knocks her down. It’s unnatural. A touch of cold on her back keeps her running. But it isn’t enough. Not when the cold grabs her by the ankles and drags her away.

Zelena can’t scream, can’t do anything but feel the cold digging into her. Like shards of ice. Concrete rough on her chest. Pavement becoming mud again. 

And the darkness.

It swallows her whole. 


	2. 1993

_ Thirteen years later. _

The recipe calls for grated coconut but Regina doesn’t have the time. She hardly has time for anything these days but she has to try. It was the grocery store two towns over that stocked coconut milk and her lunch hour had to be sacrificed for it but this will be worth it. Tapado, a Friday night treat for the middle of the week. It was sure to please Henry, to at least garner a reluctant smile and an accidental thank you. Regina will take it all. 

“What is a plantain? Never heard of it, Miss Mills.” She mutters to herself as she layers banana peels inside the pot. A poor replacement but everything about this soup is a hasty replacement. The meat is almost cooked before the stew is ready and there is potato where there they should be pataste. 

Perhaps it’s a mistake. It could remind her son of warm nights in their duplex, where meals weren’t rushed. Made with the right ingredients. It could make him resent losing the sound of the subway doors opening and the rhythm of the city. Take him back to a time when things were easier and she hadn’t been hiding the truth from him. Regina closes her eyes and focuses on the smell of coconut perfuming the air. 

“No. Everything will be fine. Negative thoughts are just that,” she reassures herself aloud like Doctor Hopper said she should. It feels ridiculous but these days have been all about trying. “Just thoughts.” 

Six o’clock on the dot. Henry is rounding the corner and will be coming through the door in a minute or two.

Everything will be fine.

* * *

She didn’t think the job came with a cushy new chair. Emma muses as she goes over the latest batch of paper-work. Didn’t think this job came with much of anything. Storybrooke Chief of Police.. On the nights that she is honest with herself she knows exactly what possessed her to mail her application. On the nights when Emma is lying to herself, which happen to be most nights, she wonders what the hell she is doing back here.

“Emma?” Jacinda knocks on her half open door as she comes in. She likes Jacinda though she doesn’t remember her beyond faded jean jackets and school hallways. 

“Yeah?”

“We got a call.” 

“What is it?” Emma tries her best at a smile “That raccoon bothering the Sisters again?” 

“No. The call...it’s from Mifflin Street.” Jacinda tells her like she knows what it means. “Regina Mills. Mulan didn’t really get the details other than she wants our overpaid asses over there right now..” 

Her mouth goes dry. Emma blinks, trying to make sense of Jacinda’s words. Her heart chips away at the bone of her ribs. Tonight she wouldn’t be able to lie to herself even if she could. 

“Right, we should get going.” She clears her throat and pins her badge to her belt. 

“Sure you don’t want me and Mulan to handle it?” 

“Yeah. She’ll want the Chief there,” For a moment Emma allows herself to get wistful. “No matter what it is.” 

Jacinda presses her lips together meaning that Emma is the boss but that it might just be a terrible idea. It could be the worst idea in the world, facing Regina on a slow Wednesday night in a shirt she didn’t bother ironing. But she beats Jacinda to the keys to the patrol car anyway. It’s a game they all play, whoever wins the keys wins rights to the radio. To any three of Storybrooke’s stations. Hits from the 50s, Disco Fever and the Christian Hour. It was too much to expect the town to change in the ten years she has been gone. 

“Would it kill them to play some Donna Summer instead of this Saturday Night Fever crap.” Jacinda says as they pull away from the station. 

“And not play this killer set every night?” Emma mockingly drums her fingers on the wheel. Anything to keep herself busy on the drive to Mifflin Street. 

Her deputy rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Chief Nolan just _ had _ to retire.” 

“Oh come on, I’m not that bad.” She knows Jacinda isn’t serious, she was the first to welcome her to the station. But considering her heart is already pounding she might as well ask. “How come you didn’t make Chief?” 

Jacinda scoffs. “You’re kidding, right?” 

Emma shrugs in return because maybe there is something she missed coming back here. 

“Pay’s not that much better but workload’s worse and I got Lucy to think about,” Jacinda shifts in her seat. “And your signature goes on everything. Don’t need that kind of attention.” 

She nods as white picket fences pass them by and the houses get bigger and bigger Emma has the luxury to forget. To not have her authority or place questioned because she looks like the people in these houses. Even when she had lived in a two bedroom that was more shack than house right where the dirt began. No one questioned her jumping these fences late at night or waiting under an apple tree. 

“Take a left on…”

“On Oak? Yeah.” 

“You really did use to live here.” Jacinda says with a laugh and Emma is pretty sure her face is flushing. “Isn’t it a little weird that you moved back here just when Regina Mills was back in town?”

“Coincidence, it’s all it is.” She cracks a window open to help cool her off. 

“Relax. Wasn’t implying otherwise. Cora Mills died like a couple of months before Chief Nolan’s retirement party.” There is a pause that wants to tell Emma something. “Makes sense she and her son moved back into the old Mills house.” 

“Her son?” Her voice goes up at least three octaves. 

“Henry. He’s Lucy classmate. Nice boy, a little shy.” Jacinda sighs. “Odd for a big city kid, right?” 

“I guess.” Emma says as they come up on Mifflin Street. “108, right?” 

Before Jacinda can answer she finds Regina, arms crossed over her chest. On the brick pathway leading to the front door. Short hair, shorter than she ever wore it. A grey dress tailored to her figure. It’s like the whole of her is throbbing, like Emma is nothing but a heartbeat. It’s lucky she is behind the wheel of a car, protected by steel because if she were out on the curb she might not have survived it. It’s Jacinda who steps out when she has barely hit the brakes.

“Where the hell have you been?!” Regina hisses. “I called fifteen minutes ago!” 

“Regina, como estas?” Jacinda replies in an obvious attempt to try and diffuse the situation.

“Don’t.” Her jaw must be clenched, if Emma knows her. “And what? Your partner can’t bother to get out of the damn car?” 

Emma kills the engine and forgets all her words on her way out of the car. When the night air hits her along with Regina’s gaze. It pierces her, through the bone. It did then too, right before Emma decided to run. When she decided for both of them. 

“Oh.” It’s just now that she realizes that her eyes are red and the tears are drying on her skin. “Chief Swan.” 

“Regina, we,” There isn’t enough air in this town to help her speak. “We came as soon as we got your call.” 

“What’s wrong?” Jacinda still tries to sound gentle, like maybe she senses what is coming. “Officer Hua said you didn’t specify.” 

“My son. He never came home,” Regina’s eyes are sharp on Emma. Sharp enough to cut through what she thought had scarred. “And before you ask all those routine questions, yes I checked with the school. His tutor. And everywhere he could have possibly gone. The library, Granny’s. No one knows where he is.” 

Emma leans against the car because this all feels too familiar. _ It’s my sister, she never came home last night. Papi hasn’t left his study and mother...I don’t know what mother is doing. _ And her ribs constrain her lungs. Squeeze them because _ Regina’s _ son is missing. A shy boy who grew up in a city away from here. Emma is Chief of Police and she can’t bring herself to breathe. 

“Why don’t we head inside and get it all down?” She hears herself say, like she would have back in the city. Her voice far away from her. 

It only gets a nod from Regina and a knowing look from Jacinda. Storybrooke is like a time capsule but this house is like she is fifteen again. The perfectly trimmed bushes and the blinding white of the siding. The air still smells of pine when she steps inside, the wooden floors have that shine to them that forced her off her shoes back then. Regina leads them to her father’s old study. They don’t sit. 

“Why don’t you walk us through Henry’s typical day?” Jacinda looks like she might want to approach her and take her hand. Regina instinctively backs away. 

“He,” The word almost shatters as she says it but only in a way Emma can recognize. “He finishes up school at three. Then he bikes five blocks to Mrs. Carter’s house for tutoring. He’s been having trouble math with lately, I thought perhaps if he got extra help. I would do it but I can hardly get away from work to pick him up on Fridays let alone…”

“Regina, this isn’t your fault.” It’s like a muscle memory, catching her before a fall. A reflex helping Emma along when she can’t think clearly. 

“Isn’t that what everyone is going to say?” Her eyes turn hard and Emma wishes, wishes they weren’t here again. That Regina weren’t asking for blame. Expecting it. “That I should’ve been there?” 

Emma doesn’t know how to answer that and not lie. “So he goes to Mrs. Carter’s house, and after that? To a friend’s, maybe?” 

Regina glances at Jacinda and then returns her gaze to her. 

“No, he goes to Miss French’s story-time at the library and stays there until closing time.” Her shoulders stiffen as she tries to keep herself together. “He is meant to be home by dinner time.” 

“And this is every day? Couldn’t he…”

“Chief, can I talk to you for a second?” Jacinda cuts in and Regina’s lips become a thin line. 

“Deci lo que tengas que decir.” The rawness of Regina’s voice is something Emma doesn’t need words to understand.

“OK,” She sucks in a breath. “Is it possible he ran away? I know you’ve been having some..uh, issues.” 

“I don’t know what fourth grade gossip you’ve picked up but my son wouldn’t run away,” Regina’s eyes are brimming with tears again. “Are you suggesting he took his bike and…”

“City kid, knows how to use public transportation. Wouldn’t be afraid to hop on a bus,” Jacinda looks at her and Emma wishes she wouldn’t. “Right, Chief?”

It’s like she’s sinking into the floor when she’s trapped between them. 

“Maybe he went back to your place in the city? If he’s having trouble adjusting…”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Regina snaps at her. “I called your department because _ my _son is missing. Not to stand around and theorize if a ten year old boy could take a bus out of here!” 

“We’re just trying to cover all our bases,” Emma steps forward because she’s forgotten herself. Forgotten they aren’t girls anymore. Pretends she can breathe through this moment. Pretends she isn’t coming undone. Stitch by stitch.“We’ll go search the town and alert the closest stations. Fax them a photo to speed things up.” 

She can feel Jacinda thinking that it’s too soon. That Henry Mills could be hiding somewhere, unwilling to come home to his mother. Kids run away all the time. _ We’ll get out of here, someday. I promise. And go where, exactly? Anywhere. Everywhere. Together. _Emma was always going to fold when it came to Regina. To her son. Break. When it came down to this moment.

There are no signs of gratitude coming from Regina as she walks towards the desk and retrieves a photo and wordlessly hands it to her. Emma is careful with it in her hands as she studies Henry Mills. Dark hair like Regina’s and a wide smile. It goes up to his cheeks. A red and grey scarf around his neck like a medal of honor. Happy, he’d been a happy kid. Suddenly she is reduced to a heart beat again. 

* * *

_ El anafre was boiling hot. The beans and cheese were practically bubbling together. Saturday lunch with papi in the city. He made a new habit when Regina began boarding school. He drove in and they would spend the day together. Lunch. A movie. Anything Regina wanted. It was meant to make her happy. _

_ “How are your classes, mijita?” He says braving the heat and scooping up fundido with a tortilla. _

_ “Good.” Regina took a sip from her horchata. “It’s the SATs next week.” _

_ “Already?” He whistled and put a hand over his head. “Como pasa el tiempo.” _

_ “I just want them over and done with.” She did. Regina did not want to think about her future anymore. She had done that her whole life. “How are things in Storybrooke?” _

_ “Oh, you know. The same.” Papi always said that. As long as her sister was missing everything was always the same. Except he seemed to be lying. _

_ “‘Papi, is there something you aren’t telling me?” _

_ He sighed and fiddled with his thumbs. _

_ “Your friend. Emmita,” Papi cleared his throat so that she wouldn’t correct him. “Police arrested her. I’m sure it was because of ese sin verguenza, Neal Cassidy. They caught her with stolen goods and driving Mrs. Lessing’s car.” _

_ Regina said nothing, thought nothing. _

_ “I heard Chief Nolan tried to get Mrs. Lessing to drop the charges but it was no use. She is in some prison now. For juveniles.” Papi takes her hand. “I’m sorry, mijita.” _

_ “It’s fine, papi.” She told him finally dipping into the fundido. “Really. We haven’t spoken in over a year.” _

Regina stares into her plate. The spices have turned the coconut orange. She can’t eat. When she heard Emma Swan had returned to town she had dreaded it. No, Regina had told herself it was fear she felt. Not gravity, not this pull in the air. She pictured running into her on the street. At Granny’s, the market. Anywhere, everywhere. Had practiced what she would say to her. A thousand times.. Every morning, every time she stepped outside her door. Let it be angry and everything in between

It feels stupid now. To have fretted about seeing her again. To have her heart stop whenever she thought she saw blonde hair at every corner. 

Everything feels stupid now. Because her soup is cold and her son isn’t home. Half past two in the morning and not a trace of him. There are so many things she should have done. Regina goes over the list obsessively. She should have picked him up for school. Every day since she moved them to this town. She shouldn’t have felt guilty over still taking her father’s money. Should have quit that job the minute Henry was unhappy. The list grows every other second with a new thing that she should have done better. Different. Or not at all. 

Her son isn’t home and it’s a quarter to three. Perhaps Jacinda Vidrio is right. He could have taken the last bus out of town. Not like Zelena, not just disappeared. With no rhyme or reason. 

But the same feeling of anguish washes over her. The same powerlessness. Makes her feel small, makes the walls close in on her. 

Regina leaves the kitchen for her bedroom. Climbs up the stairs and prays that every instinct, every feeling she has is wrong. But she knows, knows that her son did not run away. That he isn’t a bus with his forehead against the window. She slips into a fresh blouse and mumbles an old prayer under her breath. 

For her son to be returned to her. 

She prays for the phone to ring. To run on bare feet and drive her car feeling the heat of the pedal on her toes. Because she couldn’t afford to lose any time. 

The phone doesn’t ring. The light above her flickers.

* * *

Exhaustion has always seeped into her bones, made them hurt. Emma’s ankles crack and her eyes snap open before dawn. Always before dawn. Not today. Today meant feeling the cold air settle in the fog in the dark of the morning.Today meant townspeople with bed hair and red eyes wondering what the hell was so important that they were pulled out of bed. Mrs. Thomas on Maple looked her square in the eye when she told her that the family was cursed. Leroy, slurring through his words, asked if she had considered that being less of a buzz kill. Sister Linna at the Convent assured her that she had often thought of stepping in. Single mother, her tongue clicked, it’s no wonder the poor child is missing. May their Lady of Perpetual Sorrow ask the Father for mercy. Emma’s knuckles ache from trying to rein herself in. 

It’s six in the morning and it’s still dark. She bribed Ruby into opening selling her two cups of coffee and two egg and tomato sandwiches. Emma tries to think of the right thing to say as she approaches Regina’s front door. It swings open before she has a chance to ring the doorbell. 

“You have nothing.” Regina tells her through her teeth.

Emma shakes her head as she takes her in like she used to in first period math. Studying all the details that make her up, to detect the smallest crack. The most minuscule sign that would say she was about to collapse. Regina stands in slacks and a blouse that tell her she is expecting to run out of the house at any moment. Not a button out of place. What gives her away, what has always given her away, is the curling of her hair. Damp and taking up space and shape. 

“I’m sorry,”’ Emma’s shoulders sag and her erratic pulse reaches her ears.. “No one’s seen him so far, it’s...”

“Like he vanished from thin air?” She completes not shy about the bitterness bleed into the echo of those words. It’s what everyone said of Zelena when she went missing. 

“Have you eaten anything?” It’s been years but Emma still knows how to recognize desperation under Regina’s rage. 

It earns her a glare and a sharp breath but Regina steps aside to let her in all the same. A chill runs down her neck as the floor creaks underneath her boots. Like Cora Mills’s door had just opened as she was making her way down the hall. Nothing but memories and the wind. Regina quietly leads her to the kitchen and still moves in it on the tip of her toes. Careful to not make a sound. Regina’s own muscle memory. 

“Have any of them brought up that I may or may not be in a satanic cult?” Regina asks as she sets down two plates on the kitchen table. 

“Wha..what?” The shock of those words makes her hands slip and rip the paper bag.

She gives her a look that is supposed to jog her memory. 

“Papi was a communist when Zelena disappeared,” The chair doesn’t make a sound as Regina pulls it back. “Trained by the Soviets to infiltrate Storybrooke. No more communists so it’s back to cults.” 

“This fucking town,” Emma mutters, forgetting that there’s a badge on her belt. “No one had the nerve.”

“They will.” 

“Have you called him?” She asks needing to know that Regina is at least talking to someone. “Your dad, I mean.” 

“No. I can’t get a call through down there,” There is a tremor to their hands when they reach for coffee. “And his heart wouldn’t survive the shock.” 

They take the smallest of bites from their food. They both ignore it. They weren’t always good at that. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Regina tells her averting her eyes. “You’re thinking your Deputy is right. A troubled boy ran away back to the city…”

“You haven’t exactly filled me in about him,” Emma doesn’t mean like an accusation, not beyond a cop who doesn’t have all the information. “I don’t know what I think.” 

“Don’t do that, Emma.” It’s a muted kind of anger. The kind that has just grown and sat inside her quietly all these years. “You don’t get to do that.” 

She waits a beat or two, until she can hear something other than the drumming in her ears. Until she is sure that her voice won’t crack because things will never be as they were. As they could have been.

“I’m...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean..I’m sorry.” Emma whispers as she leans forward. “But I still need you to help me understand.” 

Regina takes a sip from her coffee as if it were the shitty beer Emma used to steal for them. Her face is trying to avoid contorting itself into a grimace. 

“Henry discovered he’s adopted. Through a school bully no less.” 

“Shit.”

“This town can’t keep its secrets. And children. Children can be cruel, you know that.” Her knuckles go white as her hand becomes a fist on the table. “I got a call from the principal one day. He’d gotten into a fight, which is a ridiculous thing to say about Henry. He..uh..he…”

“It’s OK.” Maybe it’s pointless to try and reassure her now. Maybe it’s pointless to try and pretend that the threads of her have all come undone. Because of Regina and her son. 

“There was a scrape under his chin when I got to him in that _ fucking _ hallway,” Regina’s voice is like glass, ready to give with the smallest push.. “It was bad. Red and rough on his skin and he wouldn’t let me look at it. Because I wasn’t his real mother.” 

“Regina…” Emma is at a loss for words. No one has come up with ones to say at moments like this. When her heart beats until it breaks.

“He called me a liar and for weeks I was lucky to get more than a few sentences out of him,” There is a brightness to her eyes, like Regina wants to laugh through her pain. “Sometimes at dinner. I could tell he was about to tell me about his day. About something he wrote or read in a book but then he would remember that he was mad at me.” 

“Has he seen someone for this? To help him process?” It had never worked on her, Emma remembers sitting shrugging her way through her mandated appointments.

“Dr. Hopper,” She pushes her plate to the side. It’s not even half empty. “He thought Henry would be ready to have shared sessions with me soon. Last Friday night he let me read to him again. Sat through it with his arms crossed but..” 

Emma lies back and tries to piece all the information together. Make it Into a picture of a boy who ran away trying to find himself because his world was flipped on its head. The picture a world where this made sense, a world where it turned out differently.

“My son, he..” Regina eyes latch onto hers. “He fumes, he steams, and slams his door shut…”

Emma knows why she sounds so sure. Stills knows Regina. Her mind has been reeling, looking at every detail. Obsessed in finding the smallest of flaws. Anything that could would mark her as guilty. 

“He wants you there, even when he’s mad.” She lets out a breath because if Emma was ever good at anything of following wherever Regina went. 

Regina strangles a sob and covers her mouth. Pinches her eyes shut. Only for a moment.

“I shouldn’t have moved us back here,” Her chest rises unsteadily. “This is...I can’t do this. Not again. Go through those rows and rows of faces. The looks, the _ whispers... _” 

“Hey, hey.” Emma forgets that it’s been too long and takes her hand like she used to. Afraid to let go. “You won’t have to. I’ll find him. I promise.” 

She thinks that Regina can feel how Emma’s blood rushes, feel how her heart is at her fingertips. Maybe she can, because Regina squeezes her hand and closes her eyes again.

* * *

Daylight peers through the window above the sink. It’s the kind that tricks her into believing that the day will be warm. That today is normal. She refuses, absolutely refuses. Regina doesn’t bother to call into work, can’t say the words. Can’t deal with pity. Because she knows that is all she would get. Instead she moves, cleans every corner of her kitchen. 

Because no one has seen her son. Because Emma had nothing to give her but her word. 

El tapado goes down the drain, she will never have the stomach for it. She feels the cold fat sticking to her fingers, splashing her blouse.

“Figures.” Regina holds her hands away from her body to inspect the damage. A blotch of orange right above her navel. “This needs to come off.” 

She wipes her hands on the rag she keeps by the sink and heads to the laundry room. Unbuttons her blouse as she walks and she sees him then. Henry, from the corner of her eye. Regina almost loses her footing but it had only been the mirror in the hall. Nothing but her reflection and desperation.. It’s as if the clock has turned and Regina is just a girl again. 

“_ What are you looking at, cara de mono?” Her sister’s voice. Regina thought she heard her as sure as she saw her. _

_ Just the mirror and a trick of the light. _

A blink of yellow. Un destello The lamp above goes back to to the dead of white when Regina looks up. 

Her blouse is half open and Regina forgets why she was in the hallway in the first place. 

* * *

The water is boiling hot, her skin turns red under the spray of the water. It’s what she needs. To scrub her body clean, let steam fog up her tight green bathroom. Almost noon and Emma can barely keep herself standing. The whole of her aches, her chest is tight. Maybe the water will help, trick her brain into believing that it’s her body that is beat to a pulp. But Emma knows better, has been here before. Crying and hating herself for it. Wanting to punch a hole through the wall, let the water burn water whatever wound she opens on her skin. Because this shouldn’t be happening. And Emma. She should be better than this. She isn’t. 

_ Neal’s beard was rough against her face. It always was and Emma hated it. But she couldn’t bring herself to say no to him. Because he wanted to run. Wanted her. _

_ “I’ll just go talk to the guy and make sure it’s all good.” _

_ “And then we’re out of here.” It felt wrong to say it and she could only think of the promise she was breaking. _

_ But that’s all her life was after Regina left. Broken promises. _

_ “I’ll be right back.” _

_ Emma smiled because he did. _

Her knees and elbows go stiff, time to pull herself together. Shiver as she wraps a towel around chest. Doesn’t wipe away the steam from her mirror, doesn’t need the confirmation that she looks like shit. It’s been some five hours since she left Regina’s and got an hour or two of sleep on the station’s busted old couch. Emma is due back soon, carry a gun and a badge that are supposed to mean something. Mean that she can fix this. 

The phone rings when she is only half-dressed.

“Please, please.” It’s the only way she knows how to pray. “Swan.” 

“Hey, Chief.” It’s Mulan on the other end. “You said to keep you updated…” 

“Is there a lead?” Hope makes her voice go hoarse. 

“Benny Crane called, from the chicken place from the outskirts of town.” Mulan clears her throat and Emma has to brace herself against the wall. “He said something about catching a kid with a shaved head stealing from the kitchen.” 

“I’ll meet you there.” She says because she doesn’t have the strength to make sense of it just yet. “

* * *

_ “Is this Castle Mills?” Regina asked her son as she eyed his drawing. Four turrets, a drawbridge. Colored in grey and blues. A long way from the mock fortress at the playground he’d decided was his castle. _

_ Henry shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t look at her. Regina wasn’t used to it. Wasn’t used to her boy keeping it all inside. Shutting himself in his room like that. _

_ “Can I...?” She began picking his favorite book from the shelf. “Can I read from your book?” _

_ He blinked at her and sighed. _

_ “I guess.” That was better than she expected. _

_ Regina pulled the chair from his desk. Tried not to think of reading with him tucked against her side. Henry holding the book up for both of them. _

_ “‘It is my birthday, said the Queen to the villagers. I will judge your offerings and whoever pleases me most gets a place in my royal guard…’” Regina was careful with each word, made sure it was as long as it had to be. No frills, no embellishments. “You, what would you offer me?” _

_ Henry glanced at her for a moment. Ready to protest at Regina’s choices but crossed his arms instead. Because she always did the voices, that was the whole point. The Queen’s voice was deeper and richer than her own. It was his favorite. She caught his eyes and tried to keep the smile off her face. _

_ “‘ A girl, Your Majesty! The man said as he brought forth a girl with golden hair and the Queen, a witch herself, saw that the girl had been put under a spell. You would gift me a girl? I shall have HER in my royal guard and YOU IN MY DUNGEONS! The Queen bellowed.’” Regina dipped her voice and threw her head back. _

_ Henry pressed his lips together, determined to look as uninterested as possible. And she felt sure, sure everything would be fine in the end. _

Henry sleeps with his stuffed elephant, he’d tucked under his pillow. Regina takes it and wraps her arms around it. 

“I’m so sorry, mi amor.” It drips out of her. “For everything. For bringing you here. For not telling you...the whole truth. I love you so much and I want you to know…”

It isn’t a flicker. Or a trick. Light fills the room. 

t’s Henry’s reading lamp, suddenly on. Bright. Henry, her boy. Impossible but Regina swears. Swears she feels her son sit next to her on the bed. 

Regina hugs the stuffed elephant tighter against her chest and cries. 

* * *

The smell of the grease traps has her breathing through her mouth at Benny’s. The place is a rundown shack that used to sell clams. About two miles from the town line, five from the old energy lab. Emma is trying to picture Henry Mills here. The shy and quiet boy who loves stories and can’t see it. But she’ll look under a rock if she has to. 

“Around what time was this?” Mulan has her notepad out, careful with all the details.

“Uh, around ten. Almost eleven?” He wipes his hands on his apron. “Kid looked a little familiar. Skinny.”

“Familiar how?” Emma carefully removes Henry’s photo from her photo. “Familiar like this?” 

“Nah,” Benny squints at the photo and Emma tries to keep herself together. “This kid was older. Darker too. Something to the look in their eye, scared. Nothing like this one.” 

“OK.” She had expected this but something still snaps inside her. “So you caught them in the kitchen and then?”

“Tried to get the little shit to stay, but I don’t know. Guess I must have slipped ‘cause next thing I knew I was on my ass,” He scratches his beard. “Kid ran out the back door with a bag of bread and a pint of milk.” 

“Mind if we have a look back there?”

“Go right ahead.” 

Emma swings kitchen door open and sees what is left of the mess. Batter on the floor and a few broken eggs. Muddy footprints, whatever kid had gone through had been nowhere in the vicinity of Regina. Running around on bare feet and skin and bones. 

“I thought Benny said this wasn’t Henry Mills.” Mulan says lowly, the question she wants to ask is implied. 

“I have a hunch.” She tries to sound as convincing as possible because she isn’t too sold on this herself. But there is something here, she can feel it. 

“You think they’re connected?”

“Could be,” It isn’t a straight line between them but nothing ever is.. “One kid goes missing and another one pops up in a kitchen at the same time?” 

There isn’t much to examine here, nothing but the woods opening up behind the shack. It’s the brown of the ground that makes them jump at her. Bread crumbs.White and falling into a neat line.

“Hansel and Gretel.” Mulan shakes her head, knowing what Emma is about to suggest. “Somehow they don’t strike me as wanting to be found.” 

** _“Hey Emma, Mulan. We got another report about the kid with the shaved head._ ** _ ” _ Jacinda’s voice comes from the radio. “ ** _Briar Rose on Hemlock called to say that they spooked her and her daughter.”_ **

“Copy that.”

“Hemlock. That’s three miles down that way, right?” Emma says, pointing towards the path the crumbs make.

Mulan hangs her head and sighs. “Must be your big city instincts, Chief.” 

Briar Rose tells them that the kid, no, the boy, she’d been sure, had given her a look and it’s like she’d been frozen in place. She said there was something she recognized in his face but before she could speak, the kid had been gone. Back into the woods behind her house. 

“Where do you think he’s going?” Mulan asks as she avoids a root Emma had missed. “The boy?” 

“I don’t know.” Emma sucks in a breath, the air in these woods feeling too familiar. “But this is our best bet with Jacinda covering the search party at the fields.” 

Twigs crack under her boot and her fingers trace the bark of the trees as often as they can. There was a time that Emma had hoped to get lost here, like in a fairy tale. And maybe the person she belonged to would come and find her. Lost girl, that’s what they called her. Gone too long to remember. Forgotten. _ Would you stop being an idiot, Swan? _Emma shakes her head and puts one foot in front of the other. 

“You don’t have to talk about it.” Mulan breaks the silence between them. “Whatever is eating you up inside.” 

“I don’t.” She replies, her chest already raw as the trees grow taller.

“Might be good if you did.” They hardly ever do this. It’s usually Jacinda who tries to kick at the rocks of Emma’s life. She must look some kind of way.

“It wouldn’t help anyone.” Emma tells her as she jumps down and lands by the grey roots of a tree she’d marked a lifetime ago. 

_ “Well, aren’t you going to say anything?” Regina crossed her arms, her eyes dark.. _

_ “Like what?” Emma shrugged and turned to look at the ground. _

_ “I tell you papi is sending me to boarding school and you can’t even look me in the eye?” _

_ “And what do you want me to say?!” She felt tears coming and she tried to wipe them away. _

_ “I don’t know!” It had come out angry and desperate. “Tell me...tell me not to go!” _

_ “Why?” Emma was furious because it had been weeks since they’d spoken. Regina hadn’t left her light on for her. Hadn’t stayed behind under the bleachers. Had walked away when Emma had gotten into Neal’s car. “So you can keep ignoring me?” _

_ Regina closed the space between them, she was like a flame. Lit Emma on fire when she pushed her against the tree and kissed her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but burn. Somehow she knew that was the moment that would change her world. There would only be life after Regina’s kiss. _

“Chief?” Mulan grabs her shoulder and grounds her back in this place.

“Yeah, did you…” Emma’s mind goes blank when she sees the wheel spinning. Slowly with the wind. Her knees buckle as it hits her. Henry’s bike, his scarf tied to the handle. Red and grey, grey and red just like his photo. 

“I don’t understand.” Mulan’s voice sounds far away. Because the world is shrinking to this piece of dirt between Emma and the bike. “That’s...what was he doing out here?”

“Henry didn’t run away,”’ She grabs the bike by its handlebars, tries to steady herself. Emma sees the path to Mifflin street so clearly. As clear as if it were yesterday. The shortcut she took at least once a week. “He was trying to get home.” 

* * *

Midtown comics. Henry decided he needed a sticker of his favorite shop riding with him as a reminder of the city. The blue of the sticker contrasts nicely with the red of the bike. Regina always thought that. Primary colors, _ superhero colors, _ Henry usually corrected. He always left it in the garage, by the door leading inside. Now it’s here, the red and blue against the greys and whites of the living room. Mud on the rubber of it’s wheels. Regina can only stare at it because Henry isn’t here. Because her son had gone missing coming home. Because Emma had brought his bike and her eyes had been so brittle. Her knees covered in grime. Because Emma had to brace herself against a column to get the words out. And the thing has sat here for hours. A big red dot.

A stain. 

“I didn’t know what to do with you,” Regina says to the empty room. “I first brought you to this house because I had nowhere else to go. I knew I couldn’t keep you a secret but you cried your lungs out the moment we stepped through that door…” Regina bites her lips and knows what she sounds like. Like the girl she once was. 

Nothing. 

“Your abuelo, he knew the truth about you right away.” She owes her son this. Even in a moment that shouldn’t have been. “ He gave me a check and an address and told me to never look back. And that’s what I tried to do.” 

Light. From one standing lamp to the other. From one end of the couch to the other.

_ Stay. Stay here. The light seemed to say then. Only blinking when she threatened to move. To leave. When she sat at the foot of her sister’s bed because she missed her. Missed her like Regina never thought she would. Perhaps if she held on to hope Zelena would come back. _

Regina sits up and holds her breath. It could be all in her head. Hope instead of answered prayers. 

“Henry?” 

Nothing.

It’s loud and echoes through the quiet of the house. A piercing ring from the phone cuts through the air, bounces off the emptiness. Then another. Regina does not wait for a third ring. 

“Hello?” 

Static comes through, noise that threatens to make her ears bleed. But there is clarity for a second. One second and Regina can hear Henry breathing. Clear as if he were standing in front of her. 

“Henry?!” Regina holds the receiver tight. “Is that you?”

Static and another moment of clarity. Another set of breaths. 

“Cariño, talk to me. Please.” It breaks, her voice. But Regina doesn’t care. “Where are you? Henry, where are you?” 

The static gets stronger and light goes out altogether in the room. The noise grows and grows until it bursts out of the plastic and leaves her ears ringing. 

Henry was trying to come through. Tried to burn through the plastic

Regina stumbles into her shoes and out of the house. 

* * *

_ Her head was spinning and the night was cold. She could see her breath as she lay in the middle of the street. Emma laughed, she laughed so hard she ached. She thought maybe this is what people meant when they asked if she was happy here. _

_ “Get up, we’re trying again.” Regina told her. Hands on her waist as she glared down at her. _

_ The world was upside down but even then. She could see Regina was trying not to laugh. _

_ “All the way up that hill?” It sounded so ridiculous but she guessed the whole night was. _

_ “Yes, all the way up that hill.” Her dark hair framed her face, longer than it had been all year. “We’re not leaving until you get it right.” _

_ “I think you just like seeing me fall on my ass.” Emma stretched out her hand for Regina to take.Maybe this is the whole reason she laced herself up in skates tonight. For Regina to take her hand. _

_ “Please. I’ve already seen you try and run the obstacle course three times this week.” Regina’s hand was smooth in hers and she thought that she was happy. Definitely. _

_ “I’ll have you know, I’m Coach Susan’s top pick for track. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” _

_ They crashed into each other when Regina helped her up. It was not clear who stumbled and who slipped but they were going to fall together. She was sure of it. It was an instinct she had, to pull Regina into her arms and shield her. _

_ “Son of a bitch.” Emma felt where her jacket had ridden up and scraped her back. _

_ “You moron, why would you do that?!” This time she laughed even if she was angry. Regina slapped her arm as she rolled off her. _

_ “Ow!”’ _

_ “That’s what you get!” _

_ “For saving your life?!” _

_ The real reason, of course, was that Emma could afford to get hurt. Emma never had to explain bruises and scrapes. Didn’t have a mother who weighed and measured her every week. She didn’t have a mother at all. _

_ “My knight in shining armor.” It was a mumble and when her voice got like that it made Emma wonder. Wonder if she meant the words she said. _

_ “Ey, ugly duckling!” Zelena says somewhere behind them. “‘Those are my skates you’re wearing!” _

_ “Andate a la mierda, Zelena.” Regina was quick to stand, in a way Emma had yet to learn. “You’ve used them once in the whole time you’ve had them!” _

_ “I got them for my birthday!” She comes into full view now. Barely taller than Regina and unmistakably her sister. Moonlight bounces off the polished handlebars of her bike. _

_ “Papi got them for you because you made first chair!” _

_ “Oh, right.” It was meant to upset Regina, make her think she couldn't care less. But Emma had figured out Zelena when she first met her. Problem with her is that she cared too much, more than most around her. “Regardless, why are your duck feet in them, Swan?” _

_ “I lost a bet.” Emma smiled because that always disarmed Zelena. “And now Regina is teaching me how to skate.” _

_ Zelena threw her head back and laughed so hard it carried everywhere. “Who knew you had it in you, sis? Next week when mother introduces you to the Meadowes’s son just tell him that you like them pretty.” _

_ “Shut up!” Regina lunged forward forgetting there were skates on her feet, almost pushing her sister off her bike. _

_ “Puta, Regina!” It comes out like a screech. “Do you WANT me to drag you by your hair all the way to Oz’s? Because I will!” _

_ It only earned her an eye roll as a reply. _

_ “Whatever.” Zelena kicks off. “Have fun explaining to mother why you can’t conjugate the plus que parfait for shit.” _

_ A car drove by, honked at them. The sound got louder and louder until the whole town was only that sound. Until it turned into ringing bells and Emma was sinking into the pavement, away from Regina. And Zelena was gone, only her bike left and the bells..the bells. _

The doorbell. Emma is in her apartment. She had barely managed to take her boots off before collapsing across her bed. Her lower-back is rigid and she can feel the pillow marks on her cheeks. Emma does the best she can to hurry to her door to make the doorbell stop. It hits her like the wind to see Regina standing there.

“Couldn’t you hear me ringing?” Her voice is raspy and exhausted.

“I was…It doesn’t matter.” Emma notices that she’s clutching her keys, one key between each finger. Dressed in the same sweatshirt and jeans she’d had on, and sneakers that look like she’d slipped them on. It’s like something had scared her out of the house. “Are you coming in or am I going out?” 

Regina breathes in before stepping inside. Emma is at a loss, can’t tell if it’s too late or too early. Doesn’t know what to do with Regina folding her arms around herself, her eyes red. 

“Coffee?” She offers because it’s the best she can do. “It’s instant.” 

Regina nods and sits at the very edge of the recliner. Boiling water in the microwave will only buy her three minutes but Emma takes them. To try and clear her mind, not think about walking up to Regina’s front door with Henry’s bike. Not see the way her eyes had closed, how she’d fought so hard to keep herself together. Long enough to ask a question; _ where? _. It’d felt like someone took a knife to her chest and slashed it open. Now, now they’re both open wounds. 

The microwave pings and soon enough her kitchen smells like the morning. Emma sets down the mugs on the coffee table and waits for Regina to speak. She can’t ask what happened, what brought her here. Because everything is wrong and upside down. 

“The phone rang,” Regina reaches for the coffee but only keeps the mug between her hands. “I was sitting by it. I hadn’t moved since you...since you left.” 

“OK.” Emma runs her thumb across Regina’s knuckles, thinking she is allowed. That her touch is needed. 

“I answered it,” The mug reaches her lip, hiding Regina behind it. “ There was interference at first but then..it was him. It was Henry.” 

“What? What did he say?” She jumps out of her seat, certain she left her notepad on the table. 

“Nothing.” Regina swallows back her tears. “He was just breathing.”

“Regina…” It’s like she is back in her dream, sinking into the street. “When...when something like this happens shitheads come out of the woodwork and prank call…”

“No, this wasn’t some sick prank caller. It was _ him. _ I could tell.” Regina turns her gaze on her and doesn’t find what she’s looking for. “You think I don’t know my own son’s breathing?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“You’d know it too if...” She stops herself but Emma feels the sting of her meaning burning through her. “I tried to get him to talk, tell me where he was. But the receiver went off, like the phone line had been zapped.” 

“Burned from the inside?”

“Yes, burned from the inside,” The tremor in her hands is back. “I’m aware of what I sound like. I might have dismissed it too if it were the first time this kind of thing happened in that house.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Her lips part, only to close again. It only ever happens when Regina is unsure of her words, of herself. It hardly ever happened but Emma had made sure to never forget it, to recognize it for what it was.

“When..When Zelena went missing, there were times I swore she was still there. I would feel her, walking behind me. Like she used to when she was trying to frighten me,” Her hand touches the back of her neck. “Lights would flicker and I thought ...sometimes I thought she was trying to tell me something. It’s been happening again and...and I’ve tried to ignore it. Rationalize it. But I’ve felt him. Seen him. And then the phone _ rang. _” 

She wants to ask why she never said anything fifteen years ago, why Regina just locked herself away. It’s not something she’s entitled to, she hasn’t been entitled to the truth for a long time. Emma’s heart clenches when she realizes what it is she has to do. Let the Chief of Police take over for her, sound nothing like Emma Swan. 

“We, uh, want to make sense of the things that happen to us, no matter how awful” she hears her voice drop and feels fingers locking together. “We start seeing connections because we want an explanation. Someone to hold responsible.”

“You think I’m too traumatized to function,” Regina scoffs and puts her mug down. “That I’ve lost my mind.” 

“I don’t. I think you’re in an impossible situation…”

“And what? I’m seeing things that aren’t there?” 

Emma lies back in her couch, not knowing what to say. Because Regina is right. About everything... She would be seeing things too. Hearing Henry’s breathing coming through the line if she…if she…

“I needed you to believe me.” 

Regina rises with her fists clenched, her eyes unforgiving on Emma.

* * *

Puzzles. Getting the right pieces to match to form a full picture. That is all a case is. Emma has always been good at them. Making sense of odd pieces based on a picture in her mind. But all she has are corner pieces. Henry. A boy with a shaved head popping up in town and vanishing before anyone can catch him. Regina. Zelena. 

“Were you a detective?” Lucy Vidrio asks her as she sits back in Jacinda’s chair. 

It’s ten to six. Jacinda has made sure her daughter is never alone because the working theory now is that Henry was taken. The thought makes her stomach drop. Three days, that’s how long it’s been. From her days in the city she knows that an hour could mean the difference between life and death. Emma doesn’t want to think about it, won’t think anything beyond finding the monster responsible.

“I was, yeah.”

“Did you ever catch any cat-burglars?” Lucy folds her hands over her desk in the spitting image of Jacinda. 

“Like Catwoman?” Emma wants to keep things light for her. She’s seen her pretending not try and eavesdrop whenever Henry is being discussed. Little girls know more than anyone gives them credit for. 

“Duh.” 

“Nah. Would have been awesome though.” 

“So you caught bad guys?” She is jotting it all down and it tugs at her. Emma doesn’t know if Henry is anything like that. 

“I tried to, kid.” 

“Are you going to catch the one who took Henry?” 

It knocks the breath out of her. Lucy’s feet don’t even reach the ground but she sits there. And she can’t answer the question.

“Lucy, I…”

“I heard mama and tia Sabine talking last night,” She leaves her chair and scurries over to Emma’s desk. “They said Miss Mills’s sister went missing too. Is that true?” 

“It is,” Emma puts a hand on her shoulder. She shouldn’t have to grow up yet. “But that was a long time ago, OK? I don’t want you worrying about it.” 

“Maybe it was the same bad guy who took them.” Lucy puts it so simply. As if they could the pieces could form a whole picture. 

“Hi, Chief.” Sabine Barre startles her, Emma hadn’t realized she’d been standing at the doorway at all. “Ready to go, baby?” 

Lucy nods and quickly moves to stuff her notebooks into her book bag. She hugs Sabine’s waist and waves goodbye. There is no lingering these days. 

“Bye, Detective Swan.” 

It makes Sabine pull a confused face and run her fingers through Lucy’s hair. But Emma understands what she means. It’s a push in the right direction. 

“Bye, Lucy.” 

* * *

The white light of the screen makes her eyes burn, Belle had left a couple of Dramamine pills along with the keys of the library. The file at the station was practically useless, three statements and a list of known hangouts. Emma is not sure that there will be anything to unearth in these old articles but they’re her best shot.

“Ok, Ok, what do I know?” Emma asks herself as she goes over the facts. “Henry was trying to get home. Just after the library closed…” 

She goes to the first article on record, the headline is bold and takes up half the page. 

** STORYBROOKE GIRL VANISHES FROM THIN AIR**

_ Zelena Mills (above) was last seen on the night of October 25th by her family. _

Emma grips her pen and draws a hard line on her paper. Two columns, one for Henry and one for Zelena. Disappeared fifteen years and five days apart. Henry was taken in the shortcut to Mifflin Street. There were no signs ever found of Zelena but it must have been on the way back from Oz Mendez’s house. Likely to take the same path as Henry. Almost like Henry was abducted because of the anniversary of Zelena’s disappearance. 

_ Miss Mills is known to be an outstanding student at Storybrooke High and is set to attend University of Cambridge after her graduation next year Cora Mills (below), a government employee at the Storybrooke Energy Laboratory, prays for her daughter’s safe return: _

_ “I have faith that Zelena is out there. God willing she is safe and will be home soon.” _

“What the fuck kind of thing is that to say?” Emma shivers as she thinks of Cora Mills. 

The pearls around her neck, the pinned hair. The red and black of her wardrobe. She remembers climbing in through Regina’s window, lying next to her in bed. Saying nothing because the police was downstairs and the red and blue of their sirens came in through the window. A surge of rage burns in her chest because she can see Cora Mills so clearly. Letting a reporter into her home that night, crafting a statement like this. No signs of distress. Not the typical reaction from a desperate mother. It had taken her years to know Cora Mills wasn’t like a typical mother at all. Always searching for her daughters’ faces for any sign of weakness. Anything that could be used against them.

_ “And who is this, dear?” Cora Mills curled her fingers around the back of Regina’s chair. She’d said her mother wouldn’t be home. _

_ “Emma Swan, mother.” Regina’s shoulders immediately straightened. “She is new in town and Mr. Lee asked me to help her catch up.” _

_ Emma could only watch, not knowing what the right thing to do was. Just sitting in that room made her feel inadequate. Surrounded by glass and porcelain. _

_ “Mr. Lee? He teaches English, doesn’t he?” The way she looked at Emma it was clear what she thought of Emma needing help in his class. _

_ “He does, mother.” _

_ “Just make sure this distraction doesn’t make you lose sight of the important classes,” The woman bared her teeth at Emma and she felt sick. “Wouldn’t want your sister to best your GPA, would you?” _

_ “No, mother. I wouldn’t.” _

Bile burns Emma’s throat when the thought fully forms in her head. Regina’s mother was capable of many things, more than she ever told Emma. But taking her own daughter feels like a stretch, an impossible and horrible one that threatens to open a hole inside her. It widens and widens until she decides it can’t be ignored anymore. Emma turns her search of the archives into one of all things Cora Mills. It’s the society pages she looks through, remembers Regina complaining about the newest spread every other week. 

_ Mrs. Cora Mills (top right), Mr. R.S. Gold (top left) at the opening of the Energy Laboratory on July 25th. The Energy Laboratory is bringing with it 300 new jobs for the county. _

_ Mayor Willis back in the race after the fundraiser held at the Mills residence. John B. Willis has built his campaign on cheaper energy prices for all and with firmer relations with the government laboratory. Mr. Julian Fernandez, his opponent, has promised to review the laboratory’s contributions to Storybrooke. _

_ Mr. and Mrs. Henry Mills local benefactors (bottom left corner) of Storybrooke’s after school science and technology programs. Daughters, Zelena Mills and Regina Mills also in attendance. _

_ Storybrooke Resident, Mrs. Cora Mills, talks of new energy age coming for town. The new atomic age, set to put Storybrooke on the map. _

_ Storybrooke High’s recital declared a spectacular success bringing in much needed aid and scouts for less privileged students. Mrs. Cora Mills, mother of two, was responsible for the coordination of the event. _

_ Energy Laboratory causes blackout in the county. Cora Mills, government spokesperson, claims that it was part of a routine test. _

It could be that she has stopped breathing but Emma presses her pen to a fresh sheet to try and draw her picture. In one corner she writes ENERGY LAB and circles it. CORA MILLS next to it, HENRY at the center of the page. ZELENA MILLS in the bottom corner and the SHAVED HEAD KID next to her name. It could be nothing, it could be a waste of time. A dead end no one would forgive her for pursuing. But there are too close to be called unfortunate coincidences. Emma needs another pair of eyes, ones that have been here before. 

Been where she is now. 

* * *

Her throat burns and her eyes are heavy. The stitches in the quilt underneath her feel rough under her fingers. But everything feels rough to Regina, the whole of her is raw. She can feel every thread on her skin, hear every sound. Her body is too tired to keep going with a mind that refuses to stop.. Stop thinking about Emma and how she hadn’t asked her to stay. Had only seen what she wanted to see.

Regina lets her eyes close, wishing Emma away. Wishing. Wishing always made her feel sick. But when her soul is split like it is it makes the whole room spin. It takes nothing for Regina to slip. Fall, deeper and deeper. 

_ Her bedroom was dark. The drapes were closed, not a chance for light make its way in. She wanted to be alone. Needed to be alone. It was December, just short of two months after Zelena went missing. Regina wanted to hide away from the world and everyone in it. Even from Emma. Especially from Emma. _

_ Papi had secretly driven to an interview and test at a private school a few days ago. He’d wiped his eyes and said it was for her own good. Regina hadn’t asked what he meant. Hadn’t asked why is it that he never thought to do this before. Why hadn’t he taken them and ran. She’d only sat there knowing she was going to lose Emma. Lose her completely. _

_ In truth, Regina was already losing her. Inching away whenever possible. Leaving her to wait under the bleachers. Walking away from her because of the thing behind the mirror and the whispers of the town. _

_ Better to lose her on her own terms. Better to close her drapes, not leave her light on for her. Anything but looking at Emma and finding her gaze on her changed. _

Regina feels the room grow steady around her and remembers the look on Emma’s face. _ Better be alone. _ But Regina still has the dancing lights and mirrors in her memories with her. Keeping her mind running towards an answer. 

Regina needs only to find them. 

* * *

The tablecloth is all crochet, plastic keeps Emma’s fingers from feeling the clunky floral patterns. It’s too early in the morning for this kind of visit but she feels no remorse on having rung the Nolan’s doorbell.

“David will be right out,” Mary Margaret Nolan assures her with a smile on her face. “Are you sure you wouldn’t take some toast while you wait?” 

“I’m fine, thank you Mrs. Nolan.” Emma says instinctively. She had never been her student but Emma stayed at the halfway house where she volunteered after being released. Mrs. Nolan had always offered her more than the other girls. Extra hot chocolate. Sweatshirts that looked brand new. Anything. It’d felt a great deal like pity then and she had never been able to accept it. 

“Not even some tea?” The smile hasn’t left her face. “I know the toll Henry’s case must be taking on you.” 

Emma’s mouth suddenly goes dry and goosebumps run down her neck.. She can’t talk about it, can’t give Mrs. Nolan what she wants from her. 

“Some tea would be nice, thank you.” It’s all Emma can do to keep her from digging up the past. She hopes that Chief Nolan comes out in the minutes it takes for the kettle to boil because she doesn’t know how much longer she will be able to stand the woman’s knowing smile. 

“Black tea?” 

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.” 

Mrs. Nolan nods and reaches for the tea in her cupboard. Emma can feel her words coming, it feels inevitable. _ Sweetheart, you’re making a mistake. I can help. _

“You know when David first told me you were his replacement, I couldn’t believe it,” The kettle begins to whistle and she wishes it would drown out her thoughts. “Emma Swan coming back to Storybrooke, it’s like something out of a story.”

“Not a very exciting one.” Emma forces a smile and her ears ring.

“And then when I saw the moving truck parked on Mifflin street and I thought, well, I thought it was fate,” Mrs. Nolan sighs weakly as she pours the hot water into the mugs. “I never would have guessed it would turn out like this.” 

“Mrs. Nolan…” She wants to say more than that, demand that she stop talking. 

“Emma! Or should I say Chief Swan?” David Nolan greets her as he rolls up his sleeves.

“Emma is fine.” Relief sets in and she shakes his hand mostly in gratitude. 

“What brings you here?” He’s smiling at her, everything about him is genuine. It makes it that much harder. 

“I was hoping we could talk about the Mills case.” Emma glances at Mrs. Nolan and he seems to take her meaning. “Could use your experience on this one.” 

“Sure, sure.” He scratches the back of his neck and then turns to his wife. “Looks like I’m going to be taking my coffee in the garage today, sweetheart.” 

Mrs. Nolan smiles at her husband and makes sure Emma takes her tea with her as she follows him through the house. It’s a small one, Emma can imagine them never being apart for too long. Always within earshot of each other. She had always wondered about them, the only couple with no children. Wondered why was it that someone like them hadn’t wanted to foster her. Maybe she got her answer ten years ago. _ Will you think it over, please? _

“Here we are,” he tells her flicking on the light. “Sorry about the mess. It drives Mary Margaret a little crazy but she puts up with it.” 

There are several boxes spread around, old sports gear and a lonely desk in a corner. 

  
“You should see my place.” Emma sips from her mug to hide her lie. She needs to give him something to get something. 

“Can’t be too bad.” He sighs and turns his eyes on her. “You said you wanted my help on the Henry Mills case?” 

“Zelena Mills, actually.” 

David Nolan can’t hide his shock, can barely look at her anymore. Small town cop, who never saw anything worse than Leroy passed out on a pile of leaves. They would have eaten him alive in the city. 

“The old case files weren’t too helpful, huh?” The yellow light in the garage makes the expression lines on his face look like fractures. Points where he has broken. 

“Not really.” Emma steps closer and lets her instincts take over. “There isn’t much to go on there.” 

“Well, uh, there wasn’t any evidence. It was like the earth swallowed her.” He casts his eyes to the side. “I’m afraid after a while we just had to accept that she was gone.” 

“Right. How did Mrs. Mills take that?’ 

“Emma…” It sounds like a warning. “I get that it may look like Henry and Zelena are connected somehow but they’re just unfortunate..”

“They have to be. And you must think so too, assuming that’s why I'm here.” Emma cuts him off with a conviction she doesn’t yet feel. “I just need you to fill in the blanks for me. Please.” 

He lies back against his desk for support and rubs at his chin. His eyes glassy and she feels her heart is about to burst out of her chest. 

“It’s been a long time. I don’t know if I should. If I can.” 

“David,” Her voice shakes. “This is my only lead and Henry...Henry is still out there. And I can’t..I can’t go to Regina and tell her to accept that he isn’t coming back._ I _ can’t accept that.” 

He nods in sadness. Maybe in shame. 

“It, uh...it,” David crosses his arms over chest. “It always sat wrong with me that Cora Mills didn’t seem to fear the worst.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Whenever I spoke to her, she always sounded so convinced Zelena was alive and well. At first I thought it was her faith keeping her strong but then it started to sound like…” 

“She _ knew _ Zelena was safe?” That hole inside her keeps stretching and stretching. 

“I followed her one day, trying to play detective. That’s how she put it when she complained to Mayor Willis about it,” Suddenly Emma can see the years on his face. “She uh...it seemed completely innocent. Stopping by a record shop before heading to work, then a pastry shop…” 

“After work errands,” Emma nods her head and remembers that Cora Mills had never been the type of woman to allow music and sweets in the house. “It doesn’t make sense.” 

“That’s what I thought. And more than that, they seemed like treats. Presents..” David swallows. “Watching her go about it, I became convinced...Jesus I can’t even say it.” 

“Say what?” She presses, just enough. 

“I felt it in my gut. That Zelena Mills was being kept in that lab. I couldn’t figure out a purpose. A motive.” His hands grip the edge of the desk. “I tried to go in, I did. Cite official police business. Flash my badge like it meant anything to those people.” 

“What happened?” Emma feels out of breath as speaks. Not knowing what to do with this confirmation. 

“Military police surrounded me. The lab was out of my jurisdiction and above my pay grade.” He looks at her, already a step ahead. “And after that, there was very little I could do.” 

The yellow of the room seems to darken as his words hit her. The impossible, worse than she imagined. There is nothing she can say, her thoughts are in a state of a quiet sort of horror. 

“Emma,” His voice is raspy.” I can’t say that I was right about Zelena or that you’re right about Henry but I do know what it’s like it to live with the guilt.” 

He looks at her like Emma might fix this. Forgive him for giving up. She hangs her head because this isn’t hers to forgive. Emma can’t even bring herself to say that. 

* * *

The blue and yellow rug with its patterns of stars and moons has been pushed against the wall. It makes the room look smaller, feel tighter around her. It used to be hers, the one room in the house that belonged to her. Where Emma used to come late at night, sometimes stay until the morning._ I’ll guard the window, make sure no one comes in. Oh, someone like you? _ Regina doesn’t know what possessed her to make it Henry’s bedroom, perhaps she thought it would shield him like it did her. She was wrong, and now it’s where she searches in between memories for her son. 

There is a trick to its floorboards. Bang three times at one end and lift. A thing like that is hard to forget, impossible even if these floorboards held her treasures and secrets. Regina looks up as the soft glow of the light faintly flickers.

“I know this would count as an invasion, cariño.” Regina says into the empty room but hopes Henry is listening. “But I need my old diaries if I’m to figure out what happened to you.” 

The light flickers again. Approval, she wants to believe. 

Dust has filtered past the wood, coating the three notebooks in a thin layer of grey. They are all so small, smaller than she remembered. It seemed to Regina that they contained volumes, all her secrets seemed so heavy back then. It’s the blue notebook she wants, the middle of it all. Regina lies back against her son’s bed and takes a deep breath. This won’t be evidence, Emma’s eyes will still feel pity on her. But this will be proof enough for her, that Henry is where Zelena’s once was. 

_ Nov. 15, 1980 _

_ I don’t understand how I’m supposed to keep a diary. Nothing is the same. Papi apenas me ve a los ojos. Mother, she spends more time at work than she used to. When she’s home all she can talk about is her new little pet of a project at work. It’s like Zelena is away on a school trip and mother just forgot. It’s set to change our family’s place in this country. Mrs. Calloway said she would understand if I needed more time for my biology project. Like mother would stand for that. Emma. Emma, waits in the hallways for me. More than she used to, I don’t think she’s noticed. Mother almost caught her in my room yesterday pero papi called her away. He says she’s good for me. Good for me to have a friend like that. I don’t tell him everything. _

_ I haven’t said anything about the lights to her. I don’t know if I will, I’m not even sure if it’s anything but old wiring. Three nights ago they danced down the hallway again and I swore I could hear Zelena pacing in her room. I don’t think she’s gone at all. _

_ I’ve tried looking in the mirror because abue says people get stuck there sometimes. One time I felt her at the other side, abue could be right. But she also covers all her mirrors during a storm para que un rayo no le parta la casa.. Mother would call it irrational but… _

Regina exhales, her breathing suddenly erratic. It’s too much, too much of a familiar hurt. But this is all she has, so she re-reads her entry. Rage presses against her ribs to see the fading ink describe her mother. She remembers wanting to scream at her, now Regina wishes she could more than ever. How did grief and rage not consume her the moment Zelena went missing?

“Descorazonda.” Regina hisses below her breath as if her mother could still hear her.

How could she sit at the dinner table, night after night, talking about her project? Her little pet of a project. And it strikes her then, like the lightning that threatened to burn her grandmother’s house. 

Little pet. Her mother’s voice, loud like thunder. 

_ You will not let your younger sister best you, will you? My little pet? _

Her spine grows cold and rigid because it cannot be, it cannot be. Mother was capable of many things, locking them in cupboards until they behaved. Agreed to whatever she wanted. Giving them unmarked pills to help them stay awake. Breaking them with one look because they knew what was coming was much worse. But the idea of mother being responsible feels like a dagger to her insides. Sharp. The cruelest of betrayals. 

_ “So your mom makes you keep a journal about your…” Emma asked still holding the candy bar Regina had already rejected. _

_ “Stats.” Regina broke off a piece, a gram of milk chocolate couldn’t hurt. “Weight, height. Muscle mass. Hours slept, Calories consumed…” _

_ “Calories consumed?” She laughed as if Regina had said something ridiculous. “Who says that instead of calling it food?” _

_ “Mother is a scientist and wants me to use the right measurements..” Her mother had to be defended in some way, she felt. Simply because Regina was her daughter, as she often reminded her. “It’s to keep track of my levels of energy and what I’m doing with it…” _

Her own voice echoes inside her memories just as Emma fades away. The cold spreads to her stomach, to her chest. To her mouth. Experiments, they had been experiments to her mother. Weighed, measured. Pushed and tested at every corner. To determine who was superior. Regina tosses her diary aside and rushes to the bathroom, the flickering of the lights following closely behind. She barely reaches the toilet and retches. In panic. In an attempt to purge her body of her mother. 

The bathroom light blinks and Regina brings herself to breathe again. 

* * *

Her body feels hot, trapped inside the cotton and leather of her clothes. Emma can feel each drop of sweat running down her back. Could be that she’s caught something but she knows it’s from her thoughts being on fire. She’d left the Nolans’ on wobbly feet and her chest rising unsteadily. Not knowing what to do next, feeling like she was burning up. _ Cora Mills, Energy Lab, Henry, Zelena, all linked. Kid with the shaved head could have escaped, and Henry taken in his place? Why, why? Does Regina know? Was she trying to tell her? _ It’s an endless loop lighting a match in the dark over and over again. Mulan and Jacinda exchange looks as they come into the station. 

“Chief, maybe you should head home.” Mulan tells her eyeing her notes and the map spread on her desk. “Get some rest.” 

“I’m OK. Nothing a bear claw or two can’t fix.” She says feeling how heavy her breath comes out of her. 

“No offense,” Jacinda hands her a glass of water. “But you look like crap. And neither one of us is ready to explain to Regina Mills that you’ve collapsed.” 

Emma can’t help but laugh at that before gulping down the water. 

“Call about mystery kid at the supermarket turned out to be a hoax anyway” She continues and rolls her eyes for good measure. “You know Johnny loves to cry wolf.” 

“And we’ll be fine without you.” Coming from Mulan it sounds reassuring. “And you know we’ll call you if we have anything new.” 

“Yeah, I know.” Emma rubs at her eyes before gathering her work into a pile to take with her. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning.” 

They both sigh in relief and try smiling weakly. Everyone is tired and frustrated, or maybe just the people between the walls of the station. Emma knows that outside life has changed too but hasn’t stopped. She avoids it as much as she can, walks out of the station determined not to see any of the normalcy that keeps the town running. When the ignition kicks in and her hands grip the steering wheel the fire returns. _ Cora Mills, Energy Lab, Henry, Zelena, all linked. Kid with the shaved head could have escaped, and Henry taken in his place? Why, why? Does Regina know? Was she trying to tell her? _It burns down Main Street and mutes all the sounds of the outside. Emma tries to quiet them, tries to tell herself that once she gets into bed and lets herself fall asleep it will stop. But it won’t stop, not until she sees Regina.

* * *

The imitation Monet that mother kept to remind herself of how far she had come is on the floor. As are the rest of the paintings in the house, some original that mother bought at exhibits. Everything in this house screams mother. Everything in this house is poison. Regina should have listened to her father, who had sighed into the phone so many months ago. He’d known and Regina doesn’t want to think about. They should be tucked together at papi’s hacienda. Two hours away from a phone-line, Regina could be teaching Henry to ride bareback. A sacar los frijoles de la vaina and cook them until they were tender. Could be listening to him enunciate all the words in Dario’s verses. Safe. Instead she is turning her mother’s house upside down for answers because her son is missing. 

“Nothing, nothing!” Regina hisses as pulls volume after volume from their shelves. She doesn’t know what she is expecting to find. “Fuck!” 

Her mother was careful and good at covering her tracks, Regina knew that. But her mother was also proud, prone to boasting about her accomplishments. Cora Mills would have kept a record, files of her little pet project. Away from the laboratory, for when the time came, she could take credit. Blackmail her superiors, exchange it for favors. Sell it to the highest bidder. Her mother was always looking for new secrets, new weapons. It’s just a matter of figuring out where she kept them. 

Regina rolls up her sleeves and catches sight of herself in a hallway mirror. Gray lips and hollow eyes. Her hair has curled completely and there is a ring of dust on her cheek. Signs that she has been hard at work, busy burying herself in the dirty innards of this house. 

_ “For God’s sake, Regina, do something about your face.” Her mother seemed bored by her. “What will people say? That Cora Mills has an orphan for a daughter?” _

_ Regina said nothing, even if she felt fire deep inside her. Burning and wanting to burn others. She turned on her heel and headed back to her room. _

_ “You better be ready by the time I’m back from the cellar.” It was cool, her voice. As if it hadn’t been a threat. A promise. _

The wine cellar. Papi had his study, filled with books and cigars, and mother had her cellar. Her pride and joy where she kept her collection. _ “Isn’t it charming? This house is straight out of a novel.” _Mother would say at her weekly dinner parties where she paraded them in front of her colleagues. She remembers it all, remembers all of them. Regina rushes down the stairs and quickly kicks at whatever lies on her way. The Persian rug, still so fine in its red and golden detail, guards the hatch. Regina had always been too afraid of her mother to look, to even try and open it. Light dances from one bulb to another and Regina laughs an exhausted laugh.

“I hope we’re right.” She says to herself. To Henry. To Zelena. 

There is a lock keeping it safe. It’s meant to look old, as if it had always been there. As if her mother had inherited it as a sort of legacy. But Regina knows it’s anything but, it requires two keys. But she pulls anyway, pulls and twists the lock. Bangs on the wood, bangs until her hands are sore.

“Por la gran _ puta.” _Her back is covered in sweat from the effort. If she didn’t know better she would say her mother was buried with the keys. 

Regina thinks of the mallet and ice pick in the kitchen and is determined to hammer away all night if she has to. She isn’t careful opening the drawer, everything inside it clangs as she does. Just as she is heading back there is a bang upstairs. Her stomach drops and a chill spreads throughout her body. Her mother is gone and no one knows about her suspicions. About the laboratory and her sister. But whoever took Henry would have no qualms about breaking into her home. 

Lights begin to blink, lighting a path up the stairs. Regina tightens her grip on the mallet and quietly avoids all the floorboards that would give her away. Another thud. Henry’s room, her room. She steadies herself and takes one deep breath. It’s too dark to see anything but a figure getting to their feet, looking out the window. The wind whistles as it comes in through the open window and that’s when Regina hits them over the head.

“What the fuck?!” 

“Emma?!” Regina says flicking on the light. Emma Swan is on the floor, holding her hand to her head. Eyes blinking furiously, almost as furiously as Regina’s heart is beating. “What the hell are you doing coming in through my window?!” 

“I heard a struggle.” It’s easy to think they are both still fifteen and fighting each other’s battles. When Emma is looking at her like that, when her hair still curls at the ends. The sight of her is completely disarming. “Thought you were being attacked. So I thought I’d…”

“Be the knight in shining armor?” Regina asks as she offers Emma her hand. 

“Something like that, yeah.” Emma shakes her head and winces. “Clearly, I was wrong.” 

“You need ice.” She tells her as her fingers instinctively inspect her hair. Like they used to, when Regina didn’t know what to call it. “Come on.” 

Emma says nothing as they head downstairs. Nothing about the mess, about the books and stacks of paper lying around. But Regina can feel her questions, feel them as sure as she feels Emma’s gaze on the back of her neck. Regina silently goes over her theory, about all the different dots and how she has stringed together as she fetches ice from the freezer.

Her thoughts don’t ever become words because Regina lays eyes on Emma sitting at the kitchen table. Watching Regina move around in the kitchen with a weak smile on her lips. Her heart races as she wonders if Emma’s mind has gone to the same place as hers. If this too feels like a shadow, a glimpse of the life she wanted. Regina remembers falling asleep next to her, after having whispered through the night. She remembers wanting to ask Emma if they could do that for the rest of their lives. If they could make dinner together like happy people did. If Emma would watch as she chopped onions and tore culantro over the beans. Regina never asked. Never got to ask. 

“Here,” Regina murmurs, pressing the ice against the side of her head. 

“Thanks.” Emma’s breath catches, doesn’t make it past her chest. “What did you hit me with, by the way?”

“Mallet.” She can tell by the way Emma’s eyes shift to the chaos behind her that she is about to ask her questions. “Care to tell me why you came to see me in the first place?” 

“I, uh..” The electricity of her pulse travels through Regina’s fingertips. “If you tell me why the house looks like a tornado hit it.”

“I asked you first.” Regina settles on a glare as she takes away the comfort of the ice. 

“You might kick me out if I do.” It’s a trick of the night, to make her voice sound so young. Make her forget that Emma had doubted her. 

“I’ll kick you out if you don’t.” 

“Right.” Emma folds her hands over the table. “I started to work with the assumption that Henry’s disappearance is linked to Zelena’s.” 

Regina only nods, not willing to vocalize how thrown she is. With Emma softening her gaze like a quiet apology. 

“I realized that whoever took Zelena very likely took Henry. I tried to find all their similarities. Dates, anything. I looked through some old articles..and…” 

“What did you find?” Her heart is in her throat, beating wild against the muscle. Emma sighs and opens her mouth just to close it. “Emma, _ what _ did you find?” 

“Your mother.” It comes out trembling, terrified. Horrified. “And the lab where she worked. I didn’t want to believe it so I went to see David Nolan. I needed to know...I wanted to be wrong..” 

“Did he give you a full report of his incompetence?” It’s harsh, Regina can’t help it. Even if Chief Nolan seemed to keep an eye on her, always offered to drive her home if she happened to be walking alone. 

“He said. He said that your mother maybe she kept Zelena in that lab. But he could never prove it. And that I may be wrong about Henry...” 

Regina laughs, laughs until it sounds hysterical. Until it carries through the kitchen. 

“I know it sounds crazy but...” Emma tells her carefully, laying a gentle hand on her wrist. 

“Crazy?” Regina stands up and reaches for the pick and mallet. “Crazier than a mother experimenting on her children?” 

“What?” 

She leads the way towards the hatch and Emma follows closely behind. Past all the debris of Regina’s obsession. 

“I don't want to believe it either,” Regina begins as she pushes the picket into the lock. “But I think Zelena disappearing was a final step in one of my mother’s projects.” 

“How did you…?” 

“I can’t fully explain it…” Regina can’t bring herself to tell her again about the lights. Mirrors, diaries and half-remembered memories. She can’t afford it. Can’t afford to lose her now that she has her. “But I can feel it.” 

“And you think the answer is at the other side of this?” There is no pity in Emma’s expression.

“Yes, I do.” She breathes out with her heart pounding. “I don’t know what I’ll do if…”

“Let me.” Emma takes the mallet from her hand and brings it down with a strength Regina doesn’t have. 

* * *

She had expected dust in her mouth, coming into her lungs. That’s the way it always was in the cheap mystery paperbacks Emma always read. The hatch opens without a sound and the air around them is clean. The hinges are oiled and Cora Mills must have gone through this door shortly before she died. It numbs the inside of her mouth with disgust. Emma looks at Regina, who has turned three shades paler. She has a hand to her chest like she is trying to keep her heart from leaping out. But her eyes are nothing but steel. 

“Ready?” She asks knowing she can’t make any promises. 

“It doesn’t matter if I am.” Regina says reaching for the ladder and climbing down into the dark. 

Emma follows, half thinking she should remove her gun from its holster. For all they know Cora Mills kept a monster caged down here. 

“There’s got to be a…” She feels Regina moving somewhere in front of her, fingers barely grazing hers. “Here it is.” 

The cellar becomes flooded with fluorescent light, blinding in its brightness. There are rows and columns of wine bottles. The green of the glass reflecting the white of the light.

“Great.” Emma exhales locking her fingers together around the back of her neck. 

“Mother was never going to make this easy.” Regina sounds like she is fifteen and practicing the violin. “She would have hidden it, whatever it is we’re looking for, in plain sight. Mother would have taken great pleasure in knowing we missed it.”

“Your mother, she..was a piece of work.” Emma’s fingers run through bottlenecks and corks tightly packed in them. 

“Isn’t that a colossal understatement?” She mutters as she knocks on a wall. Pure brick. 

It feels stupid to be down here, staining glass with her fingerprints. Leaving size eight boot prints on the cellar floor. All her training says that she should have cordoned this off, kept Regina out of it. That is what Detective Swan would have been asked to do, that is what is expected of Chief Swan. But it was only Emma Swan who climbed through Regina’s window, not the Chief of police. Just her, with her ringing ears and the pounding of her heart. Then her eyes find something odd in a bottle. The light cuts cleanly through it. Through all of them. It’s a shelf of empty bottles. 

“Hey, Regina. I think I found something,” Emma calls out as she grips the shelf and pulls. It’s light, easy enough for Cora Mills to open. Hidden in plain sight. There isn’t even a squeak or hitch when it opens, not even the bottles rattle. Her fingertips are electrified with fear, fear of what lies behind this shelf. 

An office with a bulky wooden desk at the center. Four file cabinets behind it looking like pillars and a map with carefully pinned strings to a side. A large cassette deck and attached headphones sit at the other side.

“This…” Regina almost loses her footing as she steps inside and Emma is quick to steady her with a hand to her back. “This has been here this entire time?” 

It’s like they just unearthed a body between the floorboards.

Emma carefully leads her to the desk and makes sure Regina braces herself against it. Sitting in the big leather chair behind them might break her. Sitting where her mother once sat, seeing things the way she saw them. A detective on the case might ask it of her, but Emma can’t bring herself to do it. Instead she moves to inspect the map next to them. It’s a map of Storybrooke and its surrounding areas. The strings are all different colors, they look like ripples in the water. Right at the very center is the shortcut leading to Mifflin Street. Where they found Henry’s bike. The ripples expand all the way to the old lab.

“What does this look like to you?” She asks quietly. 

Regina walks over and lays a hand on Emma’s forearm. Her fingers follow the strings, trace names and coordinates. Like she is remembering an old lesson.

“Like a blast radius. Like something exploded right here,” Regina breathes out and taps the shortcut in the woods. “And it spread all the way to the lab. That means...” 

“We may be right about this.” Emma steals a glance and catches Regina’s brow furrowing in concentration. “What is it?” 

“These numbers. These acronyms,” She draws circles around several spots on the map. “They’re a code. Mother wanted us to use it when writing our journals.”

All she knows to do is to tilt her head in confusion, hopes the shock is well hidden under it.

“If I wrote CAR357 it corresponded to Calories, Activities, Rest during the third, fifth and seventh day.” Her tone is steady, a statement of fact. “JOY8010, this one here, right at the epicenter of the blast. It means Journal of Year 80, October..” 

“That coincides with the date Zelena went missing.” Emma mumbles as she walks over to the file cabinets. Tries her luck and finds them unlocked. 

“Mother would have seen her code as a test,” Regina explains as she opens another cabinet and searches for the correct file. It’s thin. A photo slips out. 

A shaved head, the back of it. Sensors and wire attached to it, like they would be to a machine. Emma’s mind races trying to make sense of it, not knowing what to say to Regina. Not knowing if she should say anything at all. Not with the hours ticking away for Henry. 

“RUN8025 for SIT1010.” It’s like Regina has gone into a trance deciphering her mother’s old files. “Record Unit Number 8025,Subject in Training Number One.” 

Emma thinks it has been hardwired into her, watching how she instinctively reaches for another drawer and pulls a cassette tape. For a moment Emma imagines a world where Regina had been the one taken, if whatever sick prize Zelena won had gone to Regina instead. A world where she would be down here alone. Trying to piece everything together. While Regina...would be wherever Zelena is. Where Henry is. Her chest hurts as she watches Regina move towards the cassette player and feed the tape to it. She grabs the headphones but stands frozen in that spot. Eyes glassy and her throat swallowing back her tears.

“I don’t know if I can…”

“You don’t have to,” Emma tells her as she takes the headphones from her hands. “I’ll do it.” 

Regina nods and laces the fingers together. Just like she used when things got hard. The leather covers the entirety of her ears, silence is all Emma can hear. Her head tender under metal band. With hesitation Regina presses play and takes a deep breath. Her hand still locked with Regina’s. 

_ “For the record. October 26th, 1980. This is CM001.” Cora Mills’ voice comes through the grain of the tape. “It is now 0200. Four hours after the opening of the gate. I will now pause the tape to enter Subject in Training 1010’s room. If successful experimented will be replicated.” _

_ “Dear, if you want to help me understand you are going to have to be clear in your description.” She cooes. “Then you can rest.” _

_ “It was dark.” Zelena’s frightened voice says and Emma can’t breathe. “It was like darkness was alive and it took me.” _

_ “What else? Remember, be clear. It’ll help with the treatment.” _

_ “It..was..I don’t know.” She can hear Zelena growing more anxious. “It was like here. Except everything was wrong. Like being trapped behind a mirror. Our house wasn’t our house and it was cold...mama it was so cold...and it felt like I was there for years. Or maybe just a minute. I don’t..mama please. I want to go home.” _

Emma’s jaw clenches because the Zelena she had known had never begged. Had never slipped in her words unless she wanted to. Had never called Cora Mills mama. Zelena Mills had never been scared of anything. 

_ “If your progress is good we can talk about letting you go home. How does that sound, dearie?” The man’s voice is faint on the tape but it’s there. Rolling smoothly through the black of the tape. _

It’s about all she can hear, all she has the stomach for before removing the headset. 

“She was there..your sister,” Emma feels tears welling up in her eyes. Lodging themselves in her breaths. “It was...it was your mother’s doing. She talked about a gate opening...and...” 

Regina lets go of her hand and backs into the wooden desk. Bracing herself to try and stifle her sobs. Wanting to keep herself standing. Her body moves on its own, it always does with Regina. Emma wraps her arms around her, feels Regina bury her forehead on her shoulder. And she cries, quietly. Still afraid of being overheard. 

“All these years...she just lied. While..she what?! Poked and prodded her?! And then what? What did she do to her?” Regina whispers harshly against the skin of her neck. “_ La puta que la parió.” _

Emma traces circles on her back, small. Big. Anything to soothe. 

“This means. Emma, this means...Henry.” She untangles herself from Emma and holds her gaze. Determined. “This means they have him. Just like they had my sister. We have to go and make them pay. For all of it.” 

And just like that. They are both nothing but a heartbeat.

* * *

It’s a quiet night. But then again, quiet nights is when the awful always happens. Regina settles into the warmth of Emma’s police jacket as they wait inside the patrol car. Hidden in between the trees overlooking the laboratory’s fence, waiting for a change of a guard. For the lights to go out, any opening to break into the facility. To get her son back, her boy who only learned to frown when they arrived here. Who had been so happy to buried in books and leaves in the city. Who Regina couldn’t believe is hers at all. 

“Henry would love this.” She whispers, feeling her smile growing as her chest closes around her. 

“Yeah?” Emma looks at her and she can see it. The hurt she has been trying so hard to hide. To forget. Regina hadn’t wanted to see it. Hadn’t wanted to forgive it. 

“He loves a good mystery,” Her fingers pick at her tears. “A few birthdays ago I got him Encyclopedia Brown. He filled notebooks with observations and theories…” 

“Looks like I’m out of a job.” Maybe Emma had meant to laugh but it’s only pained. 

“He is such a determined boy. Stubborn, when his mind is set…” 

_ He is so small, that was the thought that crossed her mind. Tan _ _ pequeño _ _ tan hermoso. Regina loved him the moment she held him in her arms in that hospital room. His hairs were so fine and his eyes were so grey. Wrinkled and red from crying and she loved him. _

“I wonder where he gets it from.” This time she smiles at Regina, as if she is carving it out from the past. 

“There is always something he can fix,” She tells Emma as she closes her eyes. Sees him so clearly, running down their stairs. Setting up camp on their stoop. “Operation Felix, helping the neighbor find her cat. He and papi, they called it Operation Mongoose when they planned a surprise for my graduation.” 

“What would he call this? This... operation?”

“_Hello, sweetheart.” She cooed running her thumb over his brow. “__Pequeño_ _principe.” _

“Operation Henry.” There is no point in trying to keep from crying now. “That’s what I have been calling it, anyway. He would have a better name for it.” 

_ “Take him.” Her voice trembled and Regina felt lightning struck her. _

_ “What?” _

_ “Take him.” _

Regina glances at Emma and finds her crying too. It’s like they are one heartbeat now. Maybe they always were. 

“Were you ever going to tell him?” It’s heavy and wet with the weight of ten years when Emma asks her. 

“I was.” 

“About me?” She never thought she would see the green of her eyes break again like that. 

_ Emma’s hair stuck to her forehead and her voice was raspy from the pain. The pink of the gown washed her out and Regina couldn’t think. Couldn’t think beyond Emma’s son in her arms and her eyes...there was hardly any green left in them. _

“I..don’t know.” The confession spills like blood from a wound. “Why did you leave him with me? Why did you ask me to take him?” 

Her breath turns white, freezing over the blonde of her hair. 

“Emma…” Regina pushes because she needs to know. Out here, in the middle of the night with danger a few feet away. 

“You were the love of my life, you know?” It’s like lightning again. El rayo que la parte. “It’s stupid, I know. We were kids and what the hell do I know about love? But....I had him and he was...is the best piece of me. And I knew he belonged to you.” 

_ “They can fill in your name in the birth certificate…” _

_ “You can’t,” Regina began because deep down she still had hoped that she could chop onions as Emma watched. That they could run away together and be happy like people are. “You can’t do this.” _

_ “He’ll always have been yours.” _

“You could have stayed, we could have…” The words are pulled from her throat like thorns from her skin. 

“I tried to call the house,” It’s cut, her breathing. “Many times. I managed to get your dad once. He said you didn’t live there anymore before hanging up on me.” 

“I didn’t. I moved to New York.” The words come out with a shudder. “More like escaped.” 

“I should have tried harder but I thought...you were better off without me. I was fresh out of juvie. Just had the clothes on my back. You deserved better. Both of you..” Here in the dark Regina can still see how Emma’s eyes shine. She always could. “Regina, I..” 

Her name sets the fire. Burning so bright looking at Emma. The flicker of a flame that had never been extinguished and now is bursting back to life. The orange and red make her reach for Emma and kiss her. Their lips are chapped from the days they’ve had and the cold of the night but they part all the same. Emma wraps a hand around her waist and Regina feels herself slide onto her lap. And thinks, feeling the fire spreading through her, that they could have been something. The whole word hidden in stolen moments during the day. Sleepless nights. They were so young. They were so young and loved each other so fiercely. It would have been hard but it wouldn’t have mattered. Regina kisses her jaw, finds the salt on her cheeks. Mixing in with her own.

“Our son, Emma.” She breathes, pressing her forehead against hers. Forgiveness. Asking for it. Granting it. “Our son. I lost him.” 

“No. No.” Emma tucks a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “We’ll find him. We’ll get him back.” 

It feels like the ground moves under them and the night grows darker. Quieter. The lights inside the compound have gone out. 

Regina slides back onto her seat and steps out of the car. Emma nods at her like she did across the bleachers, _ follow my lead. _They move towards the fence as quickly as they can, holding their breath. Emma cuts the metal and Regina pulls and slides in as soon as she’s able. An alarm is blaring in the distance and she can only think of her son somewhere inside. Covering his ears and counting down to a hundred. Emma takes her hand and squeezes it. As they move through the dark evading watch towers. 

A soldier slides from around a corner, too preoccupied with whatever crisis seems to be happening to notice them memorizing his access code into the main building. Regina keys it in as Emma unfastens her gun. Perhaps she should be frightened to her bones but she finds that with Henry missing there is only one thing that scares her. Emma touches the small of her back and nods towards the door. _ I’ll go first. _ It isn’t up for discussion, not even a silent one. _ On three, _she signals to Regina holding up her fingers. 

The alarm is so sharp inside, the sound is drilling into her ears. Every single light in the hallway is flashing, as if there were something else trying to power it. The air, the air is filthy. Filled with something she cannot place, dust. Shavings of an unknown substance. 

“Hey! Stop right there!” A soldier says running towards them. 

Emma nods and Regina falls back and watches her break the soldier’s nose with one clean punch. He shakes his head and tries to grab her wrist. A swift kick to his groin and another hit with the back of her gun. They have led very different lives apart from each other, Regina thinks. But then again, they always had. Except for the moments that had been theirs. Her gaze falls on Emma as Regina’s chest rises unsteadily. 

“How..?” Regina mouths Emma catches it. 

“Men are assholes.” She whispers in way of explanation and holds out her hand to her. 

The building is built like a standard hospital. Grey hallways and white floors. Regina can see her mother so clearly here, the splash of color this place could afford. Almost like she will open one of these doors and call out her name. To think Zelena was here, could be here. Just like Henry is. It makes her grip Emma’s hand and wish she could burn this place down. 

**“Whale to -2A. Whale to -2A. Report to gate.” **The intercom announces through the alarm as if they were reporting a spill on aisle five. Gate. Emma mentioned a gate after listening to her mother’s records. 

Regina pulls Emma to the nearest fire exit and knows she will understand. If it were any other day, if they were younger she might marvel at how easily they fall back into place. But their son might just be at that gate. There is no time for such thoughts. Not when their footsteps are heavy on the concrete and metal of the stairs as they go down two floors. Not when the walls are growing thicker and the air seems to be choking them. 

-2A. Regina pushes the door open without hesitation, not willing to wait a minute longer. 

There were few things that had been able to strike the fear of God. Los ojos de su madre and her son’s pained cries. The red and purple glowing wild in front of her has paralyzed her. An opening, a tear behind a glass. Regina can feel its energy pressing down on her chest, pulling her closer. It’s Emma’s hand that anchors her in place, her fingers determined to not let go. 

“What is the status on Jefferson?” A man in a lab coat speaks into a microphone. His voice is cool, calculated. 

Two people in hazmat suits hold up a fist to reply. Then a cut line of metal. They are standing by the tear. The gate. Like two security guards standing idly around a museum exhibit.

“Well, keep trying.” He tells them. “The subject has to be found. We’re coming up on five days since he was taken.” 

Five days. Five days since the subject was taken. Her son, nothing but a thing to be spoken about. To be retrieved from the tear on the wall. Anger boils inside her. Spills, spills until her mouth opens and her voice is strong with intention. 

“Henry!” Regina’s eyes searching for him. For his dark hair. Somewhere, Anywhere. Anywhere but inside that tear. That gate to nowhere. 

The man’s head snaps at her and he tilts his head. Almost in amusement and her rage overflows the confines of her body. 

“We have to go.” Emma tugs at her hand but she doesn’t move. “_ Regina!” _

She steps forward resisting Emma’s grip. Her feet only know to step closer, get answers from that man. Whose eyes are empty and are burying themselves into hers. And then there is a prick and burn in her neck. 

The burn grows and grows. Until it’s running in her blood, until her the room goes dark and she slips from Emma’s grasp. 

* * *

Her mouth feels like it has been stuffed full of cotton. Like a bad trip to the dentist. Emma feels soft sheets underneath her cheeks and the warmth of a body curling around her. For a moment she is a girl again, waking up next to the person she loves the most. But the hammering of her heart reminds her she isn't. The burn in her neck and the pain in her limbs. It comes back to her in a rush. Trying to pull Regina back to her, keep her from that tear. That gate in the wall. Being so afraid, feeling life leave her too. Having to go because they had been made. Because their son still needed them and they had to survive it. The hazmat suits, the lab coats, and whatever was poisoning the air. Emma opens her eyes and lifts her head. Tries to make sense of what she sees. 

White walls, a canopy above her. The yellow of the streetlight coming in through the window. It’s night. Still. Again. Black hair on grey sheets, made a mess of curls. Regina. This is Regina’s bedroom. Emma jumps out of bed and whatever air, whatever blood she stored in her head rushes to her feet. Makes her fall hard on the wood of the floors. She can’t breathe. Can’t breathe because her neck had burned and it had all gone dark. And now she’s here. Next to Regina and her mouth feels like cotton. 

They had done this to them. The hazmat suits. The lab coats. 

They would have never let them go unless they were keeping tabs on them. It’s what they do. Men like them. The world is full of them.

“Motherfuckers.” Emma groans as she struggles to get to her feet. 

“What the hell…” Regina stirs and panics just as she had. Jolts out of bed and clings to her bed post. Her legs are weak, her knees bend as she tries to stand. “Emma? What did they do to us..” 

She shakes her head and holds a finger up to her mouth. Regina blinks furiously trying to make sense of Emma. Of her clumsily reaching for the phone and tearing apart. Twisting the receiver, exposing the blue, green and red of the wires. Looking for something foreign. Nothing. But it wouldn’t be there, whatever it is they’re hidden here. 

Regina grabs her wrist before she can leave the room. 

“_ What are you doing _?” She mouths to her. 

“_ Recording.” _Emma mouths back. Her head pounds as it dawns that she will have to search the entire house for bugs.

Then she feels it. Small. It doesn’t last very long, but it’s still sudden. Like someone had just stepped between them. A ghost of a touch. Regina gasps and puts a hand to her chest. She seems to know exactly what this is. Who this is. 

_ It’s a kick. Small. Soft against the lining of belly. Inside of her. It hadn’t seemed real until then. Not even when she went up two sizes and the warden had eyed her with pity. Not when her skin stretched red on her belly. On her hips. Not when they gave her own cell when she had started to show. That is when it felt real. When Emma understood that the baby was already a part of her. The best part of her. And it didn’t belong to her. _

“Henry.” It’s only above a whisper but it falls so sharp on Emma. Sharp enough to cut her out of her memories. 

The light above them flickers on, blinks and blinks until Regina is moving towards the door and Emma is following. She hadn’t believed it. Hadn’t believed Regina. She isn’t sure she trusts her own eyes, as the light seems to dance back and forth in the hallway. But they live in the impossible now. Where they hold on to each other again and follow their son down the stairs. 

_ “‘I refuse. I absolutely REFUSE to be an onion!’” Emma read aloud and then sighed. The browned pages were coming loose from the book. _

_ The baby that didn’t belong to her moved. Maybe they liked the sound of her voice. _

_ “I don’t know if this helps you at all in there.” Her hand landed on her womb. “Casey said it does. You know Casey, gives us her saltines when you make me puke my guts out.” _

_ They move again and Emma can’t bring herself to smile. _

_ “Who knows who you’ll be.” An image of the baby came to her. Looking nothing like her and everything like a wish. _

A glint in the mirror in the foyer. Henry. With his dark hair sticking up and his skin paler than it should be. But it’s nothing more than glint. An impossible one.

But the light keeps racing, jumping from one bulb to the next. Doesn’t wait for them to catch up, doesn’t stop until they have reached Mr. Mills’s old study and the standing lamp by the sofa is shining so bright it might explode.

It’s Regina who pulls it apart. Shade, bulb. Pedestal. Until she finds it. It’s so small. It looks like a fairy light. A microphone. 

“That’s my boy.” Regina says as she crushes it under her shoe. 

“I...I…” Emma struggles with her thoughts. With what she wants to say. With what she needs to say. “Regina…”

“I know,” She brushes her fingers against Emma’s knuckles. “It’s OK.”

Lights flicker again and it’s clear what they’re doing. Following Henry’s, _ Henry’s, _lead around the house. Finding every last microphone. In the kitchen. The pantry, the garage. Emma can barely get her thoughts to be still. For one second to try to piece everything together. If Henry knows where every bug is then he’s here. Has been here the entire time. Just like Regina said he was. Like Zelena was. Trapped behind a mirror. Impossible. All impossible. Ice fills up her veins at the thought. Zelena had been terrified. Scared enough to cry out for her mother. To try and reach for Regina too. Just like this. 

_ Her heart was beating fast and the walls well closing in on her. Her pants were soaked, she could feel the water running down her legs. Pooling at her feet. _

_ “Holy shit! Swan’s dam broke!” Emma heard someone say. It sounded like one of the older girls from the home but she couldn’t be sure. “Call Mrs. Nolan!” _

_ Emma couldn’t think beyond knowing that the baby was coming. Couldn’t think beyond her heart beating away in her throat. In her ears. Her whole body. She was scared. Scared enough to know who she wanted. Who she needed. _

They’re in Regina’s living room. Books and old board games are scattered everywhere. It’s the first time Emma has ever seen it looking like it has been lived in. Not like a picture out of a catalogue where everything matched and said something. 

“Henry, can you hear me?” Emma dares to ask. Her hand moving to her womb on instinct.

Light travels from one lamp to another. 

“He can.” Regina replies and Emma knows by the look in her eyes that she just thought of something. “He just needs a better way to answer.” 

She races out of the room and before Emma can follow she is back with a string of Christmas lights wrapped around newspaper. White and red. Enough to let the neighbors know they were good enough for Mifflin Street. Maybe she knows what Regina is planning to do.

“There is a hammer and some nails in that drawer over there,” Regina tells her as she pushes the couch away from the wall. 

Emma follows the direction of Regina’s chin and immediately hammers into the wall. Four, just enough to keep the lights in a straight line. They roll the lights out of their shape and hang them as tight as they can. It almost looks like that tear in the wall, with the red glowing off the white of the walls. 

“Perks of being a mother of a ten year old writer and illustrator,” Regina says digging into one of the armchairs. “He always leaves markers lying around.” 

“Think your mother is rolling in her grave yet?”

“She better damn well be.” 

The whole alphabet is soon written in blues and blacks on the wall. Underneath Christmas lights and waiting for their son to speak to them. 

“Does this work, cariño?” Regina asks him, naturally. Like she were fixing his tie. Not speaking through light. “Sweetheart…”

Y.E. S. 

“Oh my God.” It’s more of a breath. A shared one.

“Henry,...” Emma begins because she doesn’t know what to say to her son after ten years. 

M.O.M. 

The red and white make the brown of Regina’s eyes look golden. 

“Are you hurt?” Regina steps closer to the wall, like she can feel him. “Hijo, are you…” 

C.O.L .D. A. F. R. A. I. D. 

Regina curls a hand into a fist and bites her tears down. It’s powerlessness. Emma remembers what that looks like on her. What that feels like. 

“Henry…amor. I love you so much and we’re..”

“We’re going to get you back,” Emma promises. “Me and your mom, we’re going to get you back.” It’s a promise from a stranger but it makes every light in the house glow. 

P.L.E.A.S.E. H.E.L.P. 

There is a bang in the wall. The another and another. Stronger every time. Like something is fighting its way to the surface. Henry’s lights go wild, red and white, white and red. 

R.U.N. 

Emma takes Regina’s hand, ready to make a run to the front door. But it’s too late. The kitchen door bursts open and Emma expects a squad of military police to barge in. Ready to take them to the lab. Finish what they couldn’t. But it isn’t a squad of men. It isn’t even one man. 

It’s the boy with the shaved head. But she isn’t a boy at all. The girl is thin, too thin. Mismatched clothes hang from the frame of her body. Even then, it’s still her. If Emma hadn’t recognized those eyes and that gait then Regina collapsing against her would have been enough. 

Zelena Mills. Still seventeen. With a single drop of blood running down her nose.

* * *

Pasta. It’s all Regina could think to do. Salt the water. Crush garlic. Crumble cheese. Put in a bowl and serve it to her sister. Zelena who was taken thirteen years ago. Her sister with hair just as dark as hers. Zelena who Regina had never looked for. Skin and bones, puro hueso. With blood on her sleeve and dirt under her fingernails. The unbelievable should have become a habit but her sister is a girl. But not the same one who was stolen from her. 

“Good.” Zelena whispers after her first bite. Can’t look her in the eye. 

Emma is leaning against the counter away from them. Her hand is over her mouth. It’s like she has retreated into herself. There are still things she hasn’t shared, it’s easy to tell. There was a look in her eye, the green got greener whenever she kept something from her. Regina wonders what is it about her sister that she knows. 

The clink of the fork against porcelain is barely audible but to trained ears like hers it’s loud. Loud enough to make Zelena wince, just as she does. It’s something mother didn’t tolerate. _ Poor breeding, that’s what they will say. Y buscamos mejorar la raza, verdad hijas? _

“Sorry.” 

“Zelena, you don’t have...I’m not,” I’m not mother, she wants to say. “Do you want some more?”

Her sister is quick to shake her head and silence permeates the air. Emma steps forward, always thinking about her words these days. About the right ones. The wrong ones she shouldn’t say. 

“You’ve been looking for me.” Zelena says lowly as she spares a glance in Emma’s direction. “I saw you that day.” 

Regina’s head snaps to Emma who is nodding as she sucks in a breath. 

“I followed your bread crumbs.” She turns to Regina, the green growing paler already. “There were reports of an unknown kid running around town when Henry went missing…” 

“And you didn’t think to tell me?! What is wrong with you?” Regina replies, forgetting her sister for a second. Chastising herself for it with her nails pressing against her palm.

“I didn’t think you needed that. Not when it wasn’t Henry.” Emma shrugs her shoulders and leans in closer. 

Zelena inches away from them and Emma picks up on it. Backs away to her old spot and rests her elbows on the counter. Regina forgets that she isn’t just Emma Swan but Chief of Police. 

“Why didn’t you come here straight away?” It sounds gentle but firm. Solid. “After you...escaped?”

All the pieces to this unbelievable situation. To this moment that shouldn’t have been. Emma has already put them together. Her sister escaping just as her son was taken. Almost as if they had switched places, one taken to replace the other. Regina feels sick to her stomach, feels blood draining from her face. 

“I…” Her lips quivers, Regina could never have associated that with her sister. “I hadn’t seen mother in a while. I didn’t know if she…” 

“You were afraid she was home.” Regina completes the thought. Knows that fear, she would have felt deep in her bones too. Afraid that mother was home, afraid of her wrath. La colera, furia. But Zelena, she would have been afraid to have been forgotten. “Zelena, mother is gone.” 

There is nothing to hide behind, not hair. Not a laugh or a snide remark. Zelena laces her fingers together and bites her lip. 

“You’re sure?” 

“Positive.” Regina thinks of the service that had lasted so little. Of the few people stopping by. Of her father tugging Henry away and settling him into a booth at Granny’s later that day. Slipping out of his coat with a mug of coffee in front of him. 

“Regina, how long…” Her sister’s voice breaks all her questions into parts. Into stray syllables. As if she hadn’t spoken in a great while. “How long have I been gone?” 

“Thirteen years.” Emma replies as her heart clenches at the thought.

“Thirteen.” She repeats under her breath. “Twenty-eight. You are twenty-eight now.” 

“I am.” Regina tries on a smile, the one she reserves for children. “Do I look any different?”

“Older.” Zelena replies looking at Emma. Inspecting her face for changes too. “Do I?” 

“Look older?”

She nods faintly and reaches for the hair she does not have. Se le hace un nudo en la garganta, looking at Zelena expecting an answer. 

“You still look seventeen.” Emma tells her softly. Maybe it’s the voice she reserves for children. 

It doesn’t seem to please Zelena to know that she is still a girl. Her time was stolen from her, Regina realizes. Remembers all of Zelena’s grand plans. The Cambridge paraphernalia, the way she slipped into an accent to practice for her new life. The one that was coming.

“Time stops. Moves faster in the upside down, behind mirrors.” Zelena grabs her fork again, like a weapon. 

“Is that where you’ve been?” She thinks of Henry. Stuck in Christmas lights. Cold and afraid. Thinks of her sister being there for years. 

“Not always.” The fork is used as a rake, gathering nothing on the kitchen counter. “Only when mother needed me to find someone. Listen to what they said.” 

“Find someone?” 

“Once you’ve crossed the gate you can find almost anyone,” Zelena sounds like she is reciting from a textbook. Memorized like the parts of a cell. “All it would take is a photo. A clip of their voice. Clean, effortless...”

“Spying.” Emma says with a grimace. 

“Yes. Spying.” Zelena echoes and Regina wishes, wishes she could see a glimmer of her old self. 

Regina presses her lips together. They taste like bitterness, all that talk about papi’s allegiances, the questions over his darker skin. Mother smiling as she blends into the color of pearls and silk. When she had given up her daughter as a sacrifice, built an altar to power. 

“Could you find someone in the upside down?” It’s the steady question of the Chief of Police, ready to assume cooperation. 

“Maybe.” Her sister’s eyes shift and Zelena seems to swallow something back. “If the dark doesn’t get them first.” 

Regina’s pulse picks up, she hadn’t thought that Henry could get taken again. Lost beyond hope, not when he still lights up the room. 

“Zelena, our son…” The words are rough, scratching their way out of her throat. “He was taken just like you…”

“The gate opened again,” It sounds like a confession, as if this had been in any way her doing. “They’d been waiting for it. They are always waiting. I couldn’t close it and he fell...” 

“What do you mean you couldn’t close it?” Emma barely inches closer. 

“Sometimes.” She sets her eyes on the counters. “It wants to come through. Darkness. I try to stop it but they help it.”

“Is that what you were doing tonight?” Regina thinks of her son telling her to run. Of the walls threatening to split open. Hit after hit. 

“Yes.” 

“This isn’t your fault.” Regina tells her, determined to have Zelena believe her. “Do you understand?”

Zelena says nothing, just bites at her lips. 

“But you could help us get him back.” Emma doesn’t plead with her. No pleasantries. No exchanges. Nothing like mother.“Before the people who did this to you find him or the darkness gets him. Think you can do that?” 

Dark eyes jump from Emma and then to Regina. Zelena grips the fork tighter and sucks in a breath. 

“Yes.” Her sister replies with a hint of her old determination. “I can do that.” 

* * *

Duct tape hangs from her wrist and newspaper sticks out from her back pocket. Windows need to be covered. The drapes closed. Perfect darkness. That’s what Zelena said she needed to search the upside down and the Sun is almost up. The basement was out of the question, Emma knew that much by the look Regina gave her. They don’t know what to do with Zelena, who is still seventeen and barely herself. Regina had helped her get cleaned up, brought her a fresh change of clothes. Dressed her feet as she muttered something about infected wounds and antibiotics. That had made Zelena smile. Thirteen years since she last saw her sister, thirteen years since she was cared for. Emma could tell Regina had been at a loss, lingered in the hallway upstairs. Hadn’t known where to take her. Her old room. Henry’s or her own. Each a different thing to her sister.

It’s why Zelena is sitting cross-legged on the couch, watching them work. Regina is up on the ladder and holding out her hand for a piece of tape. Her brow is furrowed and her hair curled up. The smallest of trembles moves across her fingers, a shiver on her back. 

“This will work.” Emma tells her, quiet in her faith. “Zelena will find him and we’ll get him back.” 

Regina nods and stretches out newspaper on the window. 

“Why did you came back here?” She suddenly asks Emma as she looks over her shoulder at her sister. “To Storybrooke.” 

“Uhh..” Her face is flushed, she can feel it. Flushed with what she often buries. 

“And don’t say because you wanted to be Chief of Police.” 

Emma cuts a longer piece of tape and decides there is nothing to lose. Nothing to lose in finally saying it aloud. 

“Something was pulling me, this thing I couldn’t explain. Guess I hoped it was you and the kid.” Her chest expands and maybe the tips of her fingers are going numb. “Then I heard Chief Nolan was looking for his replacement and I thought...I don’t know.” 

“That it was meant to be.” Regina’s gaze is pinned to her. Warmer than she could have hoped for. “It was the same for me. There was a draw to this place. I felt it when I came back to fix mother’s things. When I stepped into my old bedroom and thought of us. All of us.” 

Emma sucks in a breath and leans against the wall behind her. Ten years. Ten years without each other. 

“Coming back didn’t make sense. Papi was against it. He thought I was tempting fate.” Regina scoffs. “He was right but...” 

“Yeah,” Emma answers knowing that Regina’s eyes have turned to Zelena. That if they hadn’t come back her sister wouldn’t be there. “I know.” 

“This will work.” It’s Regina saying it now as she tapes the final piece of newspaper to the window. 

“We’ll get out of this place.” She dares to say, dares to believe it. 

“You’ve been saying that for years.” Regina shakes her head as she steps off the ladder. 

“‘And I still mean it.” 

Regina smiles. So wide that it stops her heart. 

“If you’re so sure.” She tries to hide it, pretend Emma can’t see it as she folds the ladder. 

“I…” 

“Done?” Zelena asks from couch. Her brow is furrowed just like Regina’s, makes Emma believe that she is slowly coming back to her old self. 

“Yes, we’re done.” Regina replies as she closes the drapes. “Do you need me to…?” 

“I can do it.” She says as she sits in front of the TV set and slightly tilts her head. 

There is a click and a hum. The screen grows blue and color slowly seeps in. It’s on. Emma looks at Zelena sitting on the floor and then at Regina who seems just as confused as she is. Standing there in the glow of the screen, watching the unbelievable happen. 

_ And with Halloween just around the corner, be sure to stop by Bert’s old pumpkin patch before you stop at any chain store! _

** _COCA COLA. A FAMILY COMPANY. _ **

_ When I was a little girl I pretended I was a princess trapped in a tower and then this knight in a white horse would charge up and rescue me… _

** _DON’T HURT ME..DON’T HURT ME..NO MORE.._ **

Zelena blinks past every channel until the TV is nothing but white and black static. 

“OK. I’m ready.” 

* * *

Her sister is so careful with the blindfold. Her little sister, always so careful. Even when she pretended she wasn’t. Zelena feels her touch on her neck. She doesn’t know what it’s meant to be. Because Regina, Miss Practically Imperfect in Every Way, is twenty eight. She wasn’t picked, mother did not choose her in the end. Good. Maybe that is good. And now her sister’s son was missing. Emma Swan’s. Taken by the gate she couldn’t stop from opening. Her fault, her fault. Even if Regina said it was not. Her fault. 

“If it gets too bad, we’re right here. OK?” Regina’s voice is so different. Different than she is used to. 

“OK.” 

“Are you getting there?” Emma Swan asks. “Do you see..”

“Quiet.” Zelena replies trying to think of their son. Of the photo Regina had showed her.

Dark hair like theirs. Wide smile and brown eyes. A mole on his neck and freckles on his nose. Henry Mills like the man she called father. Henry Mills in the upside down. In the darkness behind mirrors. 

Zelena opens her eyes and feels the wet of the dark underneath her feet. This is peering into the mirror. Not crossing the gate. It’s just what the upside down left her with. She takes a few steps, feels the darkness up to her ankles. More, she needs to find him. Needs his voice. 

_ Me agarra el aire por la nariz: _

_ los perros ladran, un chico grita _

_ y una muchacha gorda y bonita, _

_ junto a una piedra, muele maíz _

The clapping and cheering from the video Regina had played her echo here. Zelena can see him reciting somewhere she doesn’t recognize. In front of her father. Voice sweet and playful. Goes well with his face. 

Steps in the water... One, two. Zelena turns, tries to find him. Three, four. Five, six. Breathing.

“Mom. Mom...” Henry cries out. 

“He’s here.” Zelena whispers. 

“How is he?” Regina asks. She can feel her kneeling beside her.

“Where are you?” Henry asks to the air. “Mom!”

“Scared.” 

She gets a glimpse of him. Holding himself as he walks. Cold. It’s always cold behind the mirror. Then he crouches and keeps moving. Looks over his shoulder. Smart. Henry Mills is a smart boy.

“Hiding.” 

“From what?” Emma Swan asks. 

Zelena hears more steps. Recognizes them. Three, four, five. More than she can count. Her mother’s men. They had come for her when the darkness took her. Then she feels herself sinking into the water. Sees the darkness moving towards her. Stretching towards Henry too. Sees him get to his feet and run again. 

“Men. Darkness.” 

He falls. And he seems to fall forever. Looks like the darkness will take him by the feet. Like it did her.

“No.” She breathes out. “No.” 

“Zelena, what do you see?” 

She can’t reply because it found her. It always remembers her, always remembers her voice. Infects her throat, takes the words little by little. The darkness spreads onto her skin. Like it did whenever mother asked her to listen, to repeat. Asked her to do well. Do well or leaving would never happen. Be good, be a good little pet for mother. It’s tight on her wrists, on her ankles. On her chest. And it’s begging Zelena to let herself be swallowed. To stop breathing, to stop resisting. 

“Please, please. Make it stop.” Zelena cries as her body grows rigid. “Please, mama. Please..” 

Quick fingers lift the darkness and she gasps for air. Her sister’s face is glowing, her eyes brimming with tears. Emma Swan on the floor, holding her hand. 

“It’s OK.” Regina tells her as she wraps her in her arms. “You’re safe.” 

Like mother never did. 

“Don’t make me go back.” She pleads with her as she feels her sister rocking them both. “Don’t take me there again.” 

“We won’t.” Her sister’s lips move against her forehead. 

“Promise.” Zelena demands of her, of them both. Buries into her shoulder, and keeps her eyes wide open. Sees Emma Swan’s hand go to Regina’s back. Sees her sister lean into her touch, feels her breathing under her ear.

“Promise.”

* * *

The lab looks different during the day. Grey, like every building of its time. The trees surrounding it make it look like a place where nothing out of the ordinary is happening. The Sun hitting the concrete almost purifies its insides. All the worst places are like that. Clean and made with straight lines. They are here because they couldn’t wait a second longer. Emma called Jacinda and Mulan in a rush, asked them to keep eyes on the Mills house at all times. No time to explain. Not when Henry is running and every second counts. 

“Are you sure this will work?” Emma’s heart thumps looking at Regina. At the way she straightens in her seat and raises her chin.

“We will make it work.” No doubt in her voice. 

“OK then.” The soldier at the gate steps out in front of the car. “Here goes nothing.” 

“Good day ma’ am,” He says as he approaches her window. “Do you have a pass or an appointment?” 

“No, not really. But I’m sure Doctor Whale would be very interested in what we have to say.” 

“One moment, please.” He walks over to his radio and returns too quickly to have gotten a real answer. “I’m afraid you would still need a pass.” 

“Right.” Emma glances at Regina for approval. 

It only takes a nod to punch him in the face. The soldier takes a step back, his nose clearly broken. Because if there was one thing she learned to do was to break a man’s nose on her first try. He locks his jaw and scowls at her. Maybe Emma would be afraid if she weren’t scared of the plan failing. 

“Guess you’re going to have to arrest us now.” She shrugs as steps out of the car. 

“Wouldn’t want your superiors to know you let two hostiles go, would you?” Regina asks stepping up to him. Somehow managing to look taller. Make him consider her words. 

“Put your hands behind your back. Both of you.” He bites out and cuffs them. “Control, bringing in two civilians for questioning and processing.” 

“Copy that, Smith.” 

Regina looks over at her, eyes wide. Even if this was all part of her plan it cannot be helped. The shock of feeling metal on her wrists and being pushed onto a jeep. Being told to remain silent. 

It’s a short ride to the main building. People in lab coats see them as a novelty but know better than to ask. To look for too long. The soldier walks them down a maze of hallways until he finally arrives at an interrogation room. 

“It’ll be a few hours.” He informs them as he shuts the door. 

“Are you OK?” Emma nudges her knees with hers. 

“Are _ you _ OK?” Regina returns the gesture. “I can’t imagine this brings back pleasant memories.” 

“I’ll live.” She tells her with a laugh. “These days have been so crazy that…”

“This might as well happen.” 

“Yeah. Something like that.” 

“Do you think it will really be hours?” Worry clouds Regina’s words. She knows the clock is ticking away from them too. 

“I messed up the guy’s face.” Emma shifts closer to her. “Think he just wants to screw with us.” 

“Law enforcement tactics?” It’s a nervous question despite the way she raises her brow. 

“Ouch.” 

The door opens and a man leaning against a cane walks in. No soldiers, no lab coats. No hazmat suits. 

“Chief Swan, happy to meet you.” His voice, the way it’s slow and smooth. The man from Cora’s tape. His face Emma knows from the newspaper archives. R.S. Gold. “And Miss Mills, lovely to see you again.” 

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same.” Regina replies with something like recognition. 

“Truly your mother’s daughter, aren’t you?” He chuckles.

Regina narrows her eyes into a glare. “Where is Whale?” 

“Why bother with a cog in the machinery?” All of his steps are deliberate. 

“And what are you then?” Emma asks him. 

“I’m sorry they put you in these.” He ignores the question and uncuffs their hands. “Now, we can talk like civilized people.”

Emma has this routine memorized. Treat them like people and they might just fold. 

“I know what you’re doing…” 

“Oh, Chief Swan,” He takes the empty seat across from them. “Speaking from experience?” 

“Cut the crap.” Regina puts her hands on the table.

“Alright.” He lies back and pretends to close his suit. “ ‘Grieving mother committed to mental hospital. Chief of Police with criminal background back in prison.’ Hmm...how does that sound?” 

“Fuck you, that’s what it sounds like.” Emma can play difficult, it isn’t too hard to slip back into it. 

“We let you go when you attempted your little break in,” He glances at the two-way mirror behind them.“What more do you want?” 

“We want our_ son _ back, you psychotic son of a bitch” Regina’s voice is constrained but still vibrating with anger. 

“We don’t have him.”He smirks and places a hand on his cane. “But you knew that, didn’t you? You came to us for help.” 

“If you can even give it to us.” Her head tilts and all Emma can do is watch. It’s like watching a lioness hunt. Makes her blood run hot, her heart race.

“Your son being taken was an accident, one we were trying to exploit but an accident nonetheless.” 

“Is your entire operation _ this _ inept? Or is just your leadership, Gold?” 

“Are you trying to bait me into helping you, Miss Mills?” He laughs again. “Your mother would have taught you to be less transparent.” 

“Fine.” Regina isn’t deterred by him. “But you are going to give us everything we want.” 

“In exchange for what, dearie?” His teeth almost look sharp in this light. 

“I have my mother’s records. Her tapes, her notes. Everything. And I can read her code like a first grade lesson.” Regina leans forward. “I imagine that is of some value to you. If it isn’t, I’m sure the press would know what to do with them. ‘Government official abducts children for clandestine experiments.’ How does that sound?” 

He opens his mouth and then taps the table. Regina has impressed him. 

“It sounds like you have a deal.” 

* * *

Her breath fogs up the thick plastic of the suit. They have been washed and scrubbed. Covered in vaseline and told this is their risk alone. A thousand dotted lines have been signed to buy their silence. Absolve the government from any responsibility. They might die, Regina knows that. Might die trying to get their son back. They strap a belt around their waist and hook it to a long metal line. It feels like they’re being dangled in front of a gaping mouth. And Whale y el hijo de puta de Gold, are watching it all happen. 

“We don’t yet understand the atmosphere there. Try not to breathe the air.” Whale tells them while in the control cabin. “Worse comes to worst, use the oxygen mask we gave you.” 

“Good luck.” Gold waves them off and Regina could scalp him. 

The tear glows red and violet, begs her to come closer. Let herself be swallowed. 

“Hey,” Emma takes her hand. “I’m going to stick by you, whatever happens.” 

“I know.” It feels ridiculous speaking through plastic and thin metal. “Let’s go bring him back.” 

Emma steps forward and parts the tear in the wall. It responds to her touch, recedes, leaving thin threads of red and violet in between its parts. It swallows Emma first, Regina watches her disappear into the tear. And she follows. 

It’s dark. Like there was never a Sun in this place. Just the red and violet lighting up the sky. It’s Storybrooke but devoid of a soul. Roots cover the brick of every house. And the cold. It cuts through every layer of her suit. Her boy. Her ten year old boy has endured this for days. Has survived this. 

“If Henry is hiding, where would he go?” Emma asks, lighting the way. 

“The library.” Regina says quickly and her legs move on instinct. 

Everything in this place is a perverse mirror of their world. Cars are pure rust and everything is dead. Not everything, she tells herself. The library and its clock tower falling to pieces. But still Regina has to believe that Henry is there. Hiding between rows of rotten books. She pushes the door open with every ounce of strength she has. 

It’s like the place has been covered in snow. But it’s all ash. Her heart is throbbing away in her throat. Shelves have collapsed into each other. Nothing like the straight metal lines of the Miss French’s shelves. 

“Henry!” She cries hoping he will call out to her. 

“Henry!” Emma calls out after. “It’s safe to come out!” 

“Henry! Where are you, cariño?” Regina rushes to the corner that corresponds to story time. 

Nothing. Nothing but a pile of books.

“Fuck.” Her head goes between her knees. “What if we’re too late? What if…” 

“He was here.” Emma tells her, crouching down next to her. “Look, he tried to make a shelter.” 

Regina kneels and examines the books. Piled up into two columns and big art encyclopedias open and stretched out like a roof over them. 

“Smart boy.” She reaches for the book closest to her. A damaged copy of the Mists of Avalon. Regina smiles thinking that even this place could not change him. The darkness could not touch him. She fans the book open and wishes, wishes as hard as she can. Even if it makes her sick.

“What’s this?” Emma reaches for something in front of her. “Does this mean anything to you?” 

It’s a loose page. Yellowed and almost falling apart. And there are two words written on it. 

**CASTLE MILLS**

Spelled out in mud. 

“Yes.” Regina leans against Emma, feeling the air less and less. “It’s the playground on Sycamore. We used to go every Sunday, There is this wooden fort where he...” Regina can see him so clearly, climbing to the top with his book bag hanging off his back. “He knew we were coming.” 

“Come on.” 

Regina doesn’t know when Emma pulls her up, doesn’t know when is it that she began to run. It’s like it was ten years ago. Her legs moving on their own, her mind clear except for one thing.

_ “Emma Swan. Her room, I need her room number,” she demanded as she rushed into the hospital. “I was packing up and I got a call...” _

_ “Now, Miss...you are going to have to tell me...” The nurse eyed her school uniform and it only made Regina want to scream at her. _

_ “Which. Room.” _

The cold comes for her. Hard and spreading under her suit. But Regina can only think of her son. Waiting. Her blood rushes to push the cold out of her veins, keeps her breathing.

_ The hallway was pink and blue. The colors blurring together into lilac. The smell of antiseptic was all she could smell. Could feel it in her lungs. Could hear cries all over and none she could recognize but one. _

“Regina,” Emma’s voice fights its way through the plastic. “We’re here.” 

The playground is like the rest of this place. Twisted and broken. There is no flag at the top of Castle Mills. No swings. The sand underneath is nothing but rocks. 

“Henry!” She calls out again.

“Henry, it’s safe!” 

Regina searches for him. His dark hair, his eyes. Anything.

“Hen…!” Regina stops when she finds it. The tip of his shoe. Unlaced and sticking out of a would-be teepee. “Emma!” 

“_ Let me through, let me through!” Regina pushed against the nurse who was holding her back. _

_ “Honey, you are going to have to wait outside for your…” _

_ “No, no.” Emma gasped for air looking at her. “I want her here. Please. Please.” _

They move in sync, like they are taking all their breaths together. Kneel on the ground together, pull him out together. 

Henry. Henry, with his eyes closed. Mud on his cheek under his nails. Not stirring. Her boy, their boy. Not breathing. 

“Henry, hijo, wake up.” Regina whispers, grabbing his chin. “Wake up.” 

Emma removes the top part of her suit and lays her head on his chest. Takes a deep breath of this poisoned air. Regina is quick to follow, quick to feel the cold running down her throat. Growing under her ribs. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do, OK?” Emma is trembling right along her words. “I’m going to do the compressions and you’re going to breathe into his mouth.” 

“Yes, yes just do it.” Regina brushes his hair away from his forehead as Emma pushes against his chest. 

_ “Push, sweetheart! You’re almost there!” Mrs. Nolan said, standing at the side of Emma's bed. _

“Now.” 

_ Regina pressed her lips against Emma’s forehead and let their fingers lock together. Let her breathing becomes hers too, their chests raising and falling to the same rhythm. _

She breathes into her son, praying that it’s not too late. That they weren’t too late. 

“Again.” Emma tells her, her desperation just as clear as hers.

_ “You’re going to have really go for it, Emma!” The doctor ordered without looking up. “One last big push and then they’re all yours!” _

_ “You can do it.” Regina whispered as Emma cried. “You can do it.” _

“Come on, kid.” Her eyes and cheeks are wet. Her words drenched. “Come back, Henry. Come back. Do it.” 

He is cold to her touch when Regina breathes into him again. She feels herself crying too when his chest expands with her breath. 

_ “There’s the head!” The doctor announced, just two eyes behind a mask. “And the shoulders! Oh, it’s a boy!” _

_ His cries pierced the room. Regina cried with Emma’s hands still in hers. _

A cough. Deep and strong. Fighting the poison and the cold in his lungs. Breathing, her boy is breathing. Their boy is alive. Alive. 

“Henry!” 

He coughs again and opens his eyes. For a second looking as grey as the day he was born. 

“Mom…”

“It’s OK, mi amor.” Regina takes his hand as Emma straps an oxygen mask around his face. “Just breathe. Breathe.” 

“We’re taking you home, kid.

Henry nods and tries on a faint smile as Emma takes him in her arms.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things that I couldn't say at the beginning without spoiling things!!
> 
> Cora Mills is also latina because that has always made the most sense. Social climbing and deriving power from social and financial status is a HUGE thing in latinx societies (less so in the diaspora) so this would make Regina and Zelena first generation Americans, who come from a privileged mestizx background. Just think Cora is a light-skinned mestiza who wants to buy her way into American whiteness. It's why she only uses Spanish ONCE. In my mind, Henry Sr. secretly kept the girls connected to their roots and language. 
> 
> I borrowed some of this story's vibe from Sharp Objects (child weaned on poison type thing), especially skating in a town where there is nothing else to do! But again I couldn't say this before kind of spoiling it. Amy Adams and Gillian Flynn, eternal inspirations. 
> 
> And the poem Henry recites is Ruben Dario's "Del Tropico". Narrating stories and reciting poetry is big in our societies and poets are practically national (and regional) heroes.


	3. 1994

_April 15th, 1994 _

“Grab that corner and stretch it out, cariño.” Mom points towards the folded edge of their blanket. 

It’s sunny. And it’s hot under the sweater she had made him wear. Henry rolls up his sleeves and smiles. He likes the heat. He loves the park in the middle of the city. Five stops away from home. It’s Sunday and they blend in with the crowds. Just how they planned. 

“You got your inhaler?” She asks even if she already checked twice before they even left home. 

“In my front pocket.” Henry can’t be mad. He can’t even bring himself to be annoyed. Mom fusses but it can’t be helped, he supposes. Not after all the doctors and tests. Missing a ton of school and abuelo calling every three days. 

“Remember if you feel like going home you just say the word.” 

“I know.” Henry looks around and decides to seize the moment to ask. “Do you think Emma will want to come to my narrator’s contest?” 

“Of course she will.” Mom smiles and shakes her head.

She does that a lot about Emma. He’s seen their goodbye kisses at the door. His mom smiles wider when Emma carries him on her back. Falls onto the carpet mortally wounded by his foam sword. Asks him questions about all his stories and his new characters. They love him. His mothers. Some days Henry can’t wrap his mind around the words_ Emma _ and _ mom _. But there is no rush, that’s what they told him. Maybe he’ll call her something else. Something that suits her. On different days he feels guilty he ever doubted mom but they keep reminding there is nothing to be sorry for. They’re together now and that’s the important part. 

“Is Emma going to live with us?” This is what he really wants to know. “I mean, like officially. Because she sort of already does.” 

“Would you like her to?” And that’s the widest smile he has ever seen on her. Bigger than when Emma told her she quit the force and was training to be an EMT instead. 

“Yeah.” He nods and tries to return the smile. “But we should ask tia Zelena too because we live in a democracy.”

Henry knows she is all smoke and mirrors. Ladra pero no muerde, like his abuelo says. She is the first to crawl into his bed when he is having a nightmare. Almost always beats him to meet Emma at the door. Even if it’s just to pester her. He has a feeling his aunt couldn’t ever do without annoying Emma. 

“I’m afraid Zelena thinks she has veto power.” His mom rolls her eyes, more amused than anything. 

“I heard that.” His tia says as she stands behind them. 

Her sunglasses reflect the light and her short dark hair is curling up at the ends. Like mom’s does on Saturdays. The green of her hoodie is the same color as the grass and her jeans tear at the knee.. No one would ever look twice at her. Just like they planned. 

“Heard what?” Mom turns around to inspect her. Makes sure she is all in one piece. She always does that when it comes to him and tia Zelena. 

“You know what, cara de mono.” Her words are slowly come back to normal. Mom goads her into silly fights sometimes to help her along. 

“Where is Emma?” He asks noticing that his tia’s hands are in fact empty and that they had gone for ice cream.

“Stayed behind.” She shrugs and joins them on the blanket. 

“Zelena….” Mom says in disapproval. “You know the rules.” 

“Not cool!” Emma’s voice comes booming and Henry doesn’t have to look to know she’s running. 

Four popsicle bags are hanging from her hand and she quickly tosses them at his aunt who hisses in return. 

“Cold!”

“Yeah, well should have thought of that before you _ abandoned _ me.” 

“It was a short walk!” Tia Zelena protests, all her outrage is pretend.

“Not the point!” The point is that she isn’t supposed to go anywhere alone, not for a while. But Emma isn’t mad. She never is. 

“Children, children.” He tuts and pulls out his notebook from the bag. 

Mom laughs and laces her fingers with Emma’s and pulls her down. 

“Hi.” Emma has this dopey grin on her face. All mom ever has to do is look at her. 

“Hi.” 

His tia fake coughs through an insult and he knows she’s happy. Henry knows because he is. 

  
  



End file.
